Study backs safety systems for trucks
DETROIT — Safety features such as automatic emergency braking and forward collision warnings could prevent more than 40% of crashes in which trucks rear-end other vehicles, a new study has found.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group supported by auto insurers, also found that when the rear crashes happened, the systems cut the speeds by over 50%, reducing injuries and damage.
The institute called on the federal government to require the systems on new large trucks and said that many truck fleet operators are adding emergency braking on their own.
“Rear-end crashes with trucks and other vehicles happen a lot, often with horrible consequences,” said Eric Teoh, the institute's director of statistical services who conducted the study. “This is an important countermeasure to that.”
Trucks with collision warning systems reduced rear crashes by 44%, while automatic emergency braking cut rear crashes by 41%, the study found.
To reach his conclusions, Teoh examined crash data per vehicle mile traveled at 62 trucking companies that use tractor-trailers or other trucks weighing at least 33,000 pounds. The study found about 2,000 crashes that happened over more than 2 billion miles traveled from 2017 through 2019.
The study compared trucks from the same companies that were equipped with collision warning alone, automatic emergency braking, and no crash prevention features, the IIHS said.
The IIHS also found that trucks equipped with a collision warning system had 22% fewer crashes than those without either technology. For automatic emergency braking, the figure was 12%.
“This is important information for trucking companies and drivers who are weighing the costs and benefits of these options on their next vehicles,” Teoh said.
The institute says U.S. crashes involving large trucks have increased by nearly one-third since hitting a record low in 2009. In 2018, 4,136 people died in such crashes, including 119 in rearend crashes.
Two federal agencies that regulate heavy trucks, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said they will review the IIHS report. NHTSA said in a statement that it is nearly finished with a study examining the safety benefits of driver-assist technology on heavy vehicles, while the motor carrier administration has been encouraging the voluntary use of systems such as automatic emergency braking.
In October 2015, NHTSA began the regulatory process to evaluate forward collision warning and automatic braking for heavy trucks.
The Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association, which represents independent truckers, said it can’t accept the study’s conclusions because the study did not include real-world factors such as driver training and experience or a carrier’s safety record.
AAA and other groups that have studied automatic emergency braking and other driver-assist features have found that they don’t work properly all the time. But Teoh said his study still found that they prevent or mitigate the severity of crashes, and their performance is improving.
The systems use cameras, radar or other sensors to check the road. Some just warn the driver of hazards, while more sophisticated emergency braking systems will apply the brakes.
Automatic emergency braking with forward collision warning has been required by the European Union on all new large trucks since late 2013, the institute said.