Reports of an increased incidence of injurious car and truck crashes involving tractor trailers is both worrisome and puzzling. Worrisome for the obvious reason that crashes involving such large and heavy vehicles tend to cause more physical harm and puzzling because there exists a perception that the pandemic has decreased overall traffic volumes with the theoretical benefit of fewer vehicles to crash.
Sadly this benefit appears to be illusory as the Federal Motor Carrier Administration reports in their pocket guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics. Between 2016 and 2019 large truck crashes increased from 434,000 to 510,000 incidents and per capita vehicle deaths increased thereafter at the fastest rate since World War II.
There is presntly no known certainty as to why this is occurring other than an outbreak of aggressive driving.
