On Behalf of O’Malley Tunstall PLLC | May 26, 2020 | Truck Accidents

Regular readers of our Raleigh personal injury law blog will recall that we recently wrote a post about an unusual trend: though traffic during the pandemic is down in North Carolina, fatal crashes have remained steady.

That phenomenon can be found in other places around the country as well. It makes many observers wonder if the rate of commercial truck crashes will drop at all this year, even with the decrease in passenger vehicle traffic on the nation’s interstate highways.

While we obviously can’t yet know what the data will show for this year, a recent report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) enables us to look back at last year. The federal agency reports that fatal wrecks involving at least one large truck are projected to have increased by 1 percent in 2019.

The definition of large trucks includes commercial and private vehicles with gross weight ratings of greater than 10,000 pounds.

The NHTSA announcement also contains a grim statistical oddity: though the agency expects a decline in overall traffic fatalities in 2019, it does project the increase in fatalities in large-truck crashes.

The NHTSA said it estimates that 36,120 people died in traffic crashes last year, down 1.2 percent from the 36,560 who died in traffic accidents in 2018.

The only area of the country that showed an increase in overall traffic fatalities last year was the southeast region, defined by the NHTSA as South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

If you or a loved one has been harmed in a truck accident, contact a Raleigh law firm experienced in obtaining maximum compensation in personal injury and wrongful death litigation.