Rossetti, Michael A. and Michael Johnsen. Weather and Climate Impacts on Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety. Cambridge, MA: U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, 2011. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has an interest in how adverse weather may influence trucking industry practices, and what climate change might mean for future FMCSA efforts to reduce weather-related crashes. Weather conditions influence commercial motor vehicle (CMV) operations and driver safety through wet pavement, impaired visibility, heavy precipitation, frozen precipitation, flooding, high winds, extremes of temperature, and other factors. Climate variability and climate change may also increase these exposures by affecting the distribution, frequency, or intensity of those weather events. Regional, State, and/or local impacts projected by climate change studies may have future implications for CMV safety. Should climate change result in more frequent or intense storms affecting CMVs, the historic decline in weather-related crashes may level off. This could pose challenges to FMCSA’s primary mission, and the agency may need to explore different strategies for reducing weather-related crashes, such as education and training programs or technologies that could alert drivers of adverse weather conditions.
A Technical Analysis of Driver Training Impacts on Safety. Arlington, VA: American Transportation Research Institute, 2008. This report presents the findings of the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) study examining the relationship between driver training and new entrant driver safety performance. The research looks at the overall duration of new entrant driver training, the instructional environment and curriculum topic areas covered, and the relative safety impact of each on new entrant driver safety performance.
The Role of Speed Governors in Truck Safety: Industry Speed Governor Use Survey Preliminary Analysis. Alexandria, VA: American Transportation Research Institute, 2007. This report presents the findings of the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) study examining the relationship between driver training and new entrant driver safety performance. The research looks at the overall duration of new entrant driver training, the instructional environment and curriculum topic areas covered, and the relative safety impact of each on new entrant driver safety performance.
Short, Jeffrey, et. al. The Role of Safety Culture in Preventing Commercial Motor Vehicle Crashes: Commercial Truck and Bus Safety Synthesis Program. Atlanta, GA: American Transportation Research Institute, 2007. The following research identifies and analyzes significant safety and non-safety programs and initiatives across relevant sectors that create and support, or could create and support, a positive safety culture within the trucking and motorcoach industries. These programs and initiatives were synthesized and analyzed, resulting in a documented best practices outline of the factors and attributes that offers the greatest influence on developing and enhancing a culture of safety.
Highway Safety Information System: An Examination of Fault, Unsafe Driving Acts, and Total Harm in Car-Truck Collisions. Washington, DC: Federal Highway Administration, 2004. In 1998, large trucks accounted for 7 percent of the total vehicle miles traveled but were involved in 13 percent of all traffic fatalities (5,374 of 41,471). In these truck crashes, the car's occupants were much more likely than the truck driver to be killed (78 percent of the fatalities were car occupants) or injured (76 percent of the injuries were sustained by car occupants). Two-thirds of all police-reported truck crashes involved a truck and another vehicle, and 60 percent of all truck crashes involving a fatality were two-vehicle car-truck crashes. To address this critical issue, FMCSA has set a goal to reduce truck-involved fatal crashes by 41 percent by 2008 and this study makes recommendations for improving truck safety and enhancing truck and car drivers' behavior and performance.
Commercial Driver Rest Area Requirements: Making Space for Safety. Alexandria, VA: Trucking Research Institute, 1996. A good "safe rest area" program requires sound approaches to planning, location and design and is fully integrated with the state's transportation program. This introduction describes why this issue arose, how to implement such a program and how to use this guide. Subsequent sections provide instructions of how to implement the process, from inventorying resting facilities to administering the survey, applying the model and analyzing and reporting the results.
Commercial Driver’s License Program Review: Recommended Measures for Achieving the Program’s Full Safety Potential (2008) Following a detailed review and discussion of many issues and potential solutions, the Task Force concluded that the CDL program is a highly effective highway safety program with a fundamentally sound foundation. It recommended a series of minor changes to help improve the program.
Traffic Safety Facts 2008 Report No. DOT HS-811-158, Large Truck (2009) Statistics regarding the relative rate of involvement of large trucks in different types of crashes in 2008.