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Large-truck occupant

From TruckAccidentLawyer.wiki, a sourced reference on large-truck crashes

Large-truck occupant truck accident data distinguishes people inside large trucks from other people killed in crashes involving those vehicles. For the United States, covering 50 states and the District of Columbia, NHTSA reports 920 large-truck occupant deaths in 2024 and 5,340 deaths among all people in crashes involving large trucks. The occupant figure counts only the selected people inside large trucks. These national figures come from NHTSA FARS fatal-crash data, with 2024 drawn from the Annual Report File. They measure deaths, rather than trucks or crashes.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

Contents

Official definition

The official reference, NHTSA's Large Trucks: 2024 Data, identifies the category in Table 2 as Large-Truck Occupants by Crash Type. In FARS terminology, an occupant is a driver or passenger of a motor vehicle in transport. The large-truck category confines that description to people in vehicles classified as large trucks.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

Operationally, the death count selects those occupants killed in fatal traffic crashes involving large trucks. Table 2 separates them from occupants of other vehicles and nonoccupants, and also divides large-truck occupants between single-vehicle and multivehicle crash types.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

National figures

The national illustrative figures pair large-truck occupant deaths with deaths among all people in crashes involving large trucks. Those respective counts were 822 and 4,945 in 2020, 1,011 and 5,821 in 2021, 1,098 and 5,969 in 2022, and 962 and 5,478 in 2023. Each pair compares a selected occupant group with the broader death total, rather than comparing separate crash counts.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

For 2024, NHTSA reports that large-truck occupants represented 17 percent of people killed in traffic crashes involving large trucks. The denominator is all people killed in those crashes, not the general population.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

National figures[1][2][3][4][5]
YearLarge-truck occupants killedAll people killed in crashes involving large trucks
20208224,945
20211,0115,821
20221,0985,969
20239625,478
20249205,340

United States, 50 states and the District of Columbia. Deaths, equal to DOT HS 813 816 Table 2. 2024 is the FARS Annual Report File.

What the term does not tell you

The term identifies where a person was in relation to the vehicles involved; it does not establish fault. Occupants of other vehicles fall outside the large-truck occupant count. So do nonoccupants, including pedestrians, pedalcyclists and other nonoccupants killed in these crashes. Most deaths in crashes involving large trucks were occupants of other vehicles.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

FARS supplies fatal-only crash information here, so these figures do not describe all truck crashes or all occupants involved. No population rate is supplied, and the 2024 figures come from the FARS Annual Report File.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

On related publications

References

  1. abcdefgh "Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 2020 national data files (Final File)". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Official source. Checked . Source record
  2. abcdefgh "Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 2021 national data files (Final File)". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Official source. Checked . Source record
  3. abcdefgh "Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 2022 national data files (Final File)". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Official source. Checked . Source record
  4. abcdefgh "Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 2023 national data files (Final File)". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Official source. Checked . Source record
  5. abcdefgh "Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 2024 national data files (Annual Report File)". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Official source. Checked . Source record
  6. abcdefg "Fatality Analysis Reporting System Analytical User's Manual, 1975-2024 (DOT HS 813 794)". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Official source. Checked . Source record
  7. abcdefg "Large trucks: 2024 data (DOT HS 813 816, June 2026)". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Official source. Checked . Source record
  8. abcdefg "Overview of motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2024 (DOT HS 813 791, April 2026)". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Official source. Checked . Source record