Editorial: New Safety Thrust From AAA
AAA, formerly the American Automobile Association, has finally accepted what we’ve been reporting for years: In car-truck crashes, it’s more often the automobile driver who’s at fault.
Not that the truck driver is always the innocent party, or that actions by truckers don’t contribute to collisions.
But AAA last week embraced the results of a study it had commissioned on its own, which found that in about 80% of fatal car-truck crashes the auto driver committed at least one unsafe driving act, while truckers did so in about 27% of the cases. Further, 75% of all driver errors studied were linked to the automobile drivers.
What’s important, of course, is not an I-told-you-so, but rather that AAA has now signed on as an active participant in the campaign to educate four-wheelers on how to operate safely around tractor-trailers and other heavy trucks.
“We concluded that most of the car-truck crashes happen because people drive around these big trucks the same way they drive around cars,” said Peter Kissinger, president of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
AAA officials said motorists need to be taught defensive driving skills and better understand the challenges truck drivers face.
merican Trucking Associations President William Canary applauded AAA’s efforts.
“Joining together to call for greater educational opportunities as well as stronger, more visible enforcement of current traffic laws . . . is simply the right thing to do,” he said.
The AAA study was conducted by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, which examined some 46,000 fatal crashes that occurred between 1995 and 1998.
The auto association said it would add extra resources to its existing “Share With Care” program, which offers both truck and auto drivers advice on how to avoid accidents. AAA also said it would push its safety message through its ongoing driver education and improvement programs and through the brochures it provides to its 45 million members.
We’re delighted to have AAA joining the trucking industry in improving highway safety by helping the drivers of cars and trucks better understand each other. It’s a significant step in preventing crashes.
This editorial appeared in the July 22 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.