It’s time for the trucking industry and trucking safety regulators in the US to snap out of their sense of complacency.  Statistics for the year 2010 show that there was an increase in trucking fatalities last year.

That increase is likely to shock vested interests like the trucking industry, which has been trumpeting the safety record of the industry from the rooftops over the past couple of years.  There was good reason for the trucking industry to gloat.  After all, in 2009 and 2008, there had been a decline in the number of people killed in truck accidents.

However, that was not so in 2010.  Truck accident-related deaths actually increased by 8.7% last year.  A total of 3, 675 people were killed in truck-related accidents in 2010.  That number includes not only occupants of smaller vehicles, but also truck drivers.

The number of truck drivers killed in accidents last year increased by 6%.  A total of 529 truckers were killed in accidents in 2010.  There was also an increase in the number of truck accident-related injuries in 2010.  These increased by 12% from the previous year to a total of 19,000 last year.

As a Houston truck accident lawyer, I have always maintained that the decline in truck accident fatalities over the last couple of years has been mainly due to the reduction in trucking activity since the recession.  As trucking activity across the country has picked up, fatality numbers have also increased.  The decline has not been, as the trucking industry has strongly maintained, the result of increased safety standards by the industry.

Vuk Vujasinovic is a Board Certified Houston personal injury attorney who practices Houston auto accident and other personal injury cases.

For more info on how Vuk can help you with your potential case please call him at (877) 724-7800 or fill out the contact form on the right.

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