Approximately 3,163 people were killed in trucking accidents in the United States in 2009; 9 percent of all motor vehicle fatalities involved large trucks. Recent studies have also shown that many young truck drivers, those in their early to mid 20’s, are at an increased risk of crashing. Several theories have been proposed as to why such risk exists, one of the most prominent being that driver fatigue, resulting from sleep deprivation and disruption of normal sleep/rest cycles, is often the root cause. Apart from fatigue, there are numerous other dangers involved when analyzing large trucking accidents. Large trucks are prone to rolling over and often contain defective braking systems. Resulting from such high centers of gravity, trucks frequently roll over when involved in a crash. Most worrisome, however, is the statistic which reveals that of all deaths among occupants of large trucks, 52 percent of them occur when their vehicle rolls over. Braking systems on large trucks have also been shown to be much less effective in comparison to smaller passenger vehicles, particularly on wet and slippery roads. This flaw is exacerbated when examining the high rate of defective equipment often inherent in trucks. Inspectors of post – crash vehicles determined that of all trucks involved in accidents, 55 percent of them had at least one mechanical violation.
According to a 1997 study of fatal crashes involving large trucks and passenger vehicles, it was discovered that nearly half of them comprised truck underride crashes. In an underride crash, the passenger of the vehicle hitting the truck is partially or fully forced under it, increasing the risk of death or serious injury. The majority of these crashes can be traced back to defective equipment issues, as rear – impact guards on trucks often fail to comply or are exempt from federal regulations pertaining to them.