AAA Report Underscores Benefits of High-Tech Truck Safety Advances
Photo: AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
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Photo: AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
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The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety is recommending that all large trucks— both new and existing ones— be equipped with what it considers to be “cost-effective technologies that improve safety for everyone on the road.”
Each of the safety technologies endorsed by the foundation is familiar to many in trucking and has already been embraced by numerous, especially brand-name, fleet operations.
“There’s no question that truck safety technology saves lives,” said Dr. David Yang, executive director of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety on Sept. 21. He said the foundation’s new research shows that “the benefits of adding many of these technologies to trucks clearly outweigh the cost.”
The report, Leveraging Large Truck Technology and Engineering to Realize Safety Gains, examined the safety benefits and costs of installing these four advanced safety technologies in both existing and new large trucks:
Lane-departure warning systemsAutomatic emergency brakingAir disc brakesVideo-based onboard safety monitoring systems
According to the foundation, the research also revealed that:
The societal safety benefits (i.e., economic value of lives saved, injuries prevented, etc.) of equipping all new and existing large trucks with lane-departure warning and video-based onboard safety monitoring systems far outweigh the costs. Specifically, it was determined that lane-departure warning systems can prevent up to 6,372 crashes, 1,342 injuries and 115 deaths each year. Video-based onboard safety monitoring systems can prevent as many as 63,000 crashes, 17,733 injuries and 293 deaths each year. The societal safety benefits of equipping all new trucks with automatic braking or air disc brakes could outweigh costs. It was shown that automatic emergency braking can prevent up to 5,294 crashes, 2,753 injuries and 55 deaths each year and that air disc brakes can prevent up to 2,411 crashes, 1,447 injuries and 37 deaths each year.
In addition, a AAA survey …Read the rest of this story
