• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Indiana's Truck Death Rate is No. 2 in Nation

Posted on: Tuesday, 16 May 2006, 18:08 CDT

By Ted Evanoff, The Indianapolis Star

May 16--Indiana is heavily industrialized like Michigan and Ohio. And it is lined with freeways like Illinois.

When it comes to large freight trucks and cars colliding, though, Indiana has no peer in the industrial Midwest. Indiana ranks second in the nation for fatal truck wrecks as a share of all deaths in road accidents.

Collisions between automobiles and large trucks accounted for 13.2 percent of all fatal Indiana crashes in 2004, a rate that trailed only Wyoming.

Just why Indiana ranks so high puzzles transportation scientists who suspect the death rate traces to limited seat-belt use in speeding automobiles that get in the way of heavy freight trucks unable to stop in time.

Indiana has tightened its seat belt laws since 2004 -- pickup truck and sport utility vehicle owners no longer can obtain exemptions to the seatbelt regulations.

But only about 69 percent of Indianapolis-area drivers on average use seat belts.

When a freight truck on I-69 hit a van carrying Taylor University students in April, the fatal wreck illustrated Indiana's road carnage. And it led to a question: What makes Indiana's truck fatality rate so high?

The accident on rural I-69 near Upland stands out in part because the tractor-trailer struck the passenger vehicle. In the vast majority of the 4,939 truck crashes counted in the state in 2004, the car hit the truck. People died in 166 of those wrecks.

Traffic experts say the basic reason for the high car-truck accident rate is busy roads. Lined by freeways that link metropolises on the seas and the Great Lakes, Indiana is crossed daily by thousands of long-haul truckers.

In addition, what's happening might be explained by cultural differences, said Virginia Tech's Ron Knipling. He pointed out that such accidents often happen in rural areas, where people tend not to use seatbelts.

When it comes to the death rate per capita, Indiana does have more in common with poorer states. Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia and Mississippi ranked, respectively, second through fifth in truck crash deaths per 100,000 population on a 2004 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Research Administration, a federal agency that compiles safety statistics.

Wyoming ranked first, with 8.09 deaths for every 100,000 residents, while Indiana led the industrial Midwest, at 2.62 deaths per 100,000 population. That ranked Indiana 15th nationally, 15 spots above the closest neighbor, No. 30 Ohio at 1.66 per 100,000.

Of the 698 people killed in all wrecks in Indiana in 2004, only 40.4 percent were wearing seatbelts. In contrast, Michigan's death rate appears lower partly because seatbelt use is higher.

In that state, seatbelts were in use in 51.1 percent of all road fatalities. As a result, Michigan's death rate was 1.12 people killed per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, compared with Indiana's poorer showing of 1.3 deaths per 100 million miles.

"There are people who would disagree," Knipling said, but the truck fatality rate probably is due in part to accidents "on secondary and nondivided highways."

"I don't have a statistic to back it up, but I'd say it's the location of where they're driving," Knipling said. "Local (truck) operators are coming in and out of parking lots and crossing intersections. The truck is like a moving tree. The other drivers out there in cars make a mistake, if they cross that center line, the truck may be there."

Indeed, NHTSA reports show 40.9 percent of Indiana's fatal truck wrecks occurred on streets and secondary roads, compared with 25.1 percent nationwide.

-----

To see more of The Indianapolis Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.IndyStar.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, The Indianapolis Star

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Indianapolis Star

More News in this Category