Truck Accidents in New York: Statistical Analysis & Legal Implications

In 2021, there were over half a million large truck accidents across the United States, representing a 26% increase in large truck accidents from 2020 to 2021.¹ Thankfully, a majority of these accidents do not result in fatalities or injuries. In 2020, 4,444 commercial trucking collisions—or roughly 1% of large truck accidents—resulted in fatalities.²

New York is not immune from the danger of trucking accidents. The American economy is logistically dependent on the trucking industry, but this does not mean truck drivers and trucking companies are entitled to behave however they choose. Negligence on the part of truck drivers and trucking companies causes enormous economic loss in the United States each year. Even worse, commercial trucking accidents cause devastating injuries and deaths.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a commercial trucking accident, call the attorneys at Dansker & Aspromonte Associates. Our attorneys have significant experience litigating commercial trucking accidents. We are available to consult with you about your legal rights and options in the wake of a devastating trucking accident.

The Unique Challenges of Truck Accidents in NYC

The Impact of Weather, Road Conditions & Local Infrastructure on NYC Truck Accidents

Weather, road conditions, and local infrastructure all play a role in determining the frequency of commercial trucking accidents. Weather conditions such as high wind speeds can impact vehicle performance metrics such as stability. The Federal Highway Administration (“FHA”) collected statistics on the impact of weather events on the frequency of automotive collisions from 2007 to 2016. The FHA’s data showed that there are an average of 1,235,145 crashes every year, and approximately 21% of those crashes—nearly 259,000—occur either in adverse weather such as rain, sleet, snow, fog, severe crosswinds, or blowing snow, sand, or debris, or on slick pavement.³ Despite their size and enormous power, commercial vehicles are not immune to these conditions.

Road conditions account for the vast majority of weather-related accidents. Seventy percent of these crashes occur on wet pavement. Surprisingly, winter conditions account for a much smaller percentage of weather-related crashes: only 18% of crashes occur during snow or sleet, 13% occur on icy pavement, and just 16% take place on snowy or slushy pavement.⁴

Surprising Statistics: Rural Trucking Accidents Are More Common Than Urban Collisions

Despite the risks seemingly posed by dense urban environments, fatal truck accident injuries are less common in NYC than in rural areas. Significantly larger proportions of trucking accidents involving commercial trucks, 18-wheelers, or big rigs occur on high-speed roads in rural areas. Twenty percent of people in the U.S. live in rural areas, yet in 2022 almost 54% of all fatal truck accidents occurred in rural areas, compared to the roughly 46% of fatal truck crashes that occurred in urban environments.⁵

These statistics are partly attributable to the fact that commercial vehicles tend to move at much higher speeds in rural areas than in urban areas for two reasons. First, commercial trucks, semi-trucks, 18-wheelers, and other big rigs operating in rural areas are more frequently driving on roads with higher speed limits. Second, the operators of these commercial vehicles are more likely to drive faster than the speed limits on the less congested roads typical of rural areas.

However, speed is not the only factor at play here. The roads in rural areas often present significantly different conditions than their urban counterparts. Rural roads are often much darker than urban ones, increasing the risk of a collision due to enhanced driver fatigue. The layout of the land also increases the risk of a trucking accident in rural areas. Urban roads are often designed in a predictable grid, but rural roads are often laid out in more complicated ways.

The Economic Cost of Truck Accidents

Commercial trucking is big business in America: American truckers carried 10.23 billion tons of freight and generated $732.3 billion in revenue in 2020.⁶ These trucks are responsible for carrying 72.5% of the nation’s cargo, and there are more of them on America’s highways than ever before. With that increase in trucks has come an increase in both the frequency of truck accidents and fatalities in those accidents.

Trucking accidents cause enormous economic losses. Quantifying the economic costs of trucking accidents is an uncomfortable endeavor, especially those in which a human being is injured or killed, but these costs are too large to ignore. Safe trucking policies, procedures, and practices are not just intended to keep people safe; they function to protect the American economy.

According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (the “FMCSA”), the average cost of a commercial truck accident in which one person is injured is $148,279. A fatal trucking accident is even more expensive: the FMCSA reports that the average total cost associated with a fatal trucking accident is $7.2 million.⁷ These numbers do not account for the legal liability faced by truck drivers and their employers in the aftermath.

Commercial trucking accidents impose both visible and invisible costs. The visible costs include the damage to the truck itself, damage to the truck’s cargo, injury costs from the accident, medical costs associated with the accident, administrative fees, increased insurance premiums for the trucking company, the cost of tow trucks, and the costs of storing the damaged vehicles.

However, the hidden costs associated with trucking accidents are often even more expensive. These costs include the salaries paid to employees involved in a truck accident, the trucking company’s loss of clients, the employee’s lost time at work due to the accident, the unavailability of the damaged trucking equipment, workers’ compensation premiums that must be paid, hiring replacement drivers, and paying any fees or fines owed to the government. The broader economic disruption caused by trucking accidents may be impossible to calculate.

The Scope of Truck Accidents in NYC

NYC Truck Accident Statistics by Borough

It is difficult to precisely measure the impact of dense urban environments on truck accidents, but the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) keeps updated records of all motor vehicle collisions in New York City. As of June 2024, there were 599 motor vehicle collisions involving large commercial vehicles (defined as vehicles with 6 or more tires) in New York City and another 80 collisions involving smaller commercial vehicles (defined as vehicles with 4 tires).⁸

Brooklyn—which had 219 collisions involving large commercial vehicles and another 37 collisions involving small commercial vehicles—had the greatest number of these collisions. Staten Island had the fewest such collisions, with only 15 large commercial vehicle collisions and just 2 small commercial vehicle collisions. Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx fall between these two poles, with 141, 132, and 92 large commercial vehicle collisions, respectively, and another 17, 12, and 12 small commercial vehicle collisions, respectively.⁹

New York is Among the Safest States in the Nation

As previously stated, there were 4,444 fatal accidents involving large trucks such as semi-trucks, big rigs, or eighteen-wheelers in 2020. In that year, there were 108 fatal trucking accidents in New York. That number is unacceptably high, but New York is one of the safest states when the number is put into its full context.¹⁰

Per capita, New York had the third fewest fatal trucking accidents of any state, with just 5.52 trucking fatalities per one million people in 2020. The five states with the highest number of fatal trucking accidents per capita—specifically Nebraska, Mississippi, South Dakota, Alabama, and Wyoming—had an average of 28.44 fatalities caused by trucking accidents per million people.¹¹

Unfortunately, these numbers have increased in New York. In 2022, there were 143 fatalities in large truck accidents in New York. These accounted for 2% of all trucking fatalities in the United States in 2022.¹²

Causes of Truck Accidents in NYC

In July 2007, the FMCSA released a study examining the reasons why accidents involving large trucks happen. That study, which selected a nationally representative sample, ultimately found a statistically significant link between ten associated factors and crashes of both ordinary automobiles and trucks. Those factors are:

1. Interruptions in the flow of traffic;
2. A driver’s lack of familiarity with a roadway;
3. Inadequate surveillance of the road;
4. Driving faster than is appropriate for a given set of conditions;
5. Drivers performing illegal maneuvers;
6. Inattentive driving;
7. Driver fatigue;
8. Drivers who are sick;
9. Drivers wrongly assuming what other drivers will do on the road; and
10. Driving while distracted by an object or another person in the vehicle.¹³

This study notes that these factors are not exhaustive. This is especially true in examining trucking accidents, as there was a statistically significant link between trucking accidents and issues with the truck’s brakes and tires, jackknifing, and cargo shift.¹⁴

Ultimately, the most common cause of trucking accidents is driver error. The term “driver error” encompasses the following:

• Nonperformance: Nonperformance in this context means things like the driver falling asleep, being disabled by a medical issue such as a heart attack or seizure, or being physically impaired for some other reason.
• Recognition: A driver errs in recognition by being inattentive, getting distracted by something inside or outside of the truck, or failing to adequately observe the situation in front of them for some other reason.
• Decision: Driver errors also include the decisions that a driver consciously makes, such as the decision to drive too fast or follow other vehicles too closely.
• Performance: This component of driver error recognizes that the driver attempted to perform their duties but failed due to panicking, overcompensating, or exercising poor control over the vehicle.¹⁵

It makes sense that inadequate training of a commercial vehicle’s driver is a prominent cause of trucking accidents given that driver error is the most common cause of trucking accidents. Trucking companies must be proactive in ensuring their drivers are properly certified and able to handle the tasks at hand.

In the same vein, trucking companies need to perform proper substance abuse screening at the time they hire the trucker and continue these screenings throughout their employment. Substance abuse runs rampant in the trucking industry and is a major cause of commercial trucking collisions.

Equipment failure is another broad category that can cause a trucking accident. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Fatal Causation study found that 55% of truck accident injuries involved a truck with at least one mechanical failure, and 30% of trucks have at least one out-of-service equipment issue. Common equipment failures include:

• Faulty or poorly maintained brakes;
• Improperly inflated or worn tires;
• Defective or missing safety equipment such as underride rails;
• Improperly functioning or defective lights or turn signals;
• Generally poor vehicle maintenance;
• Unbalanced cargo;
• Transmission failure; and
• Defectively manufactured parts.¹⁶

Finally, it is the priorities of the trucking companies themselves that often cause trucking accidents. The sad truth is that companies often prioritize meeting client delivery deadlines above all else, leading to unrealistic schedules for their drivers, improper loading of the trucks, and driver fatigue. This, in turn, results in an increased likelihood of an accident. Tragically, many of the crashes caused by the poor practices implemented by the company in pursuit of client satisfaction could be prevented if only the company would prioritize the safety of its drivers and other motorists.¹⁷

Legal Implications of Truck Accidents in NYC

People who are injured in trucking accidents, and their families, may be entitled to compensation under the law if they can prove that the truck driver or the trucking company was negligent. Evidence of violations of federal or New York state regulations by the truck driver or company goes a long way toward proving the trucking company’s negligence. More specifically, a skilled NYC truck accident lawyer can use their knowledge of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (the “FMCSRs”) and New York state regulations to identify a legal obligation set forth by those regulations, determine if the defendant truck driver or trucking company met that obligation, and, if they did not, determine whether that failure was the cause of their client’s injury.¹⁸

Under the FMCSRs, trucking companies—known as carriers—are required to establish financial responsibility for a minimum of $750,000 in either insurance policies, bonds, or self-insurance. This requirement that the trucking company maintain an insurance policy worth at least $750,000 serves two purposes. First, it ensures that parties who are injured in a trucking accident are able to seek compensation for those injuries from the company that caused them. Second, requiring the companies to obtain insurance is an indirect way of encouraging them to maintain safe practices and procedures through the insurance company’s monitoring of its insured. The idea is that insurance companies will charge higher premiums or refuse to issue a policy to companies engaged in unsafe practices, thereby incentivizing safe practices.¹⁹

Given the gravity of the harm that befalls truck accident plaintiffs, it should come as no surprise that there are numerous types of damages available to people injured in trucking accidents under New York law. New York recognizes that plaintiffs are entitled to damages to replace what they lost due to the truck accident injury. These will generally include expenses for medical bills and other financial issues necessitated by the injury. In rare cases, the plaintiff may receive punitive damages where the truck driver’s or trucking company’s actions were egregious.²⁰

Conclusion

As has been demonstrated, trucking accidents have many contributing factors, including road conditions, weather, driver errors, faulty equipment, and bad procedures on the part of the trucking companies. When disaster strikes, trucking accidents can cause millions of dollars in quantifiable economic damages. All too often, these trucking accidents permanently alter human lives for the worse or end them altogether. Effective trucking accident litigation is crucial in helping to prevent the social and physical harms caused by negligent trucking practices.

Call our attorneys at Dansker & Aspromonte Associates if you have been injured in a trucking accident. Our attorneys understand the difficulties you and your family are facing during this time and will walk with you every step of the way. We understand that, at the end of the day, your case is critical to getting your life and the lives of your family members back on track after suffering a horrific injury.

1. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, “Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts,” 2021.
2. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “Fatality Analysis Reporting System,” 2020.
3. Federal Highway Administration, “Weather Impacts on Safety,” 2019.
4. Id.
5. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “Fatality Analysis Reporting System,” 2022.
6. American Trucking Associations, “Trucking Industry Revenues,” 2020.
7. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, “The Economic Cost of Large Truck Crashes,” 2021.
8. New York City Police Department, “Traffic Collision Statistics,” 2024.
9. Id.
10. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “Fatality Analysis Reporting System,” 2020.
11. Id.
12. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “Fatality Analysis Reporting System,” 2022.
13. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, “Large Truck Crash Causation Study,” 2007.
14. Id.
15. Id.
16. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, “Fatal Causation Study,” 2021.
17. Id.
18. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, “Large Truck Crash Causation Study,” 2007.
19. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, “Financial Responsibility Requirements,” 2021.
20. New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, “Compensation for Injuries,” 2024.