Multiple deaths much more common in transport truck collisions

June 27, 2016 · 0 Comments

OPP has responded to more than 27,000 collisions involving large transport trucks over the past five years.
For this reason, police teamed up with the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) June 16 for Operation Corridor, a 24-hour enforcement and education initiative aimed at encouraging all commercial vehicle drivers to help keep roads safe.
Among the truck-related collisions on OPP-patrolled roads between 2011 and 2015, 260 of them resulted in at least one fatality. Tragically, many of the crashes involved multiple fatalities with a total of 321 people having lost their lives.
Of the victims, 281 of them were drivers and passengers in other vehicles involved in the crashes. The other 40 victims were drivers of the transport trucks. Whether these collisions were the result of unsafe driving on the part of the truck drivers or the drivers of other vehicles, the most compelling fact remains that on average, over the five-year period, for every transport truck driver who died in these collisions, there were seven other lives lost.
This latest data reinforces the need for commercial truck drivers to make road safety their number one priority. The statistics also serve as a reminder to other motorists to share the road safely with these large vehicles.
While most of these truck-related incidents were the result of a collision, every year the OPP investigates road incidents involving tires or other equipment dislodging from transport trucks and flying into the path of other vehicles. In many of these instances, the driver and/or other car occupants are seriously injured or killed.
“Every life we lose on our roads is tragic and, sadly, the highest price we pay for crashes on OPP-patrolled roads is in the loss of human life,” commented OPP Deputy Commissioner Brad Blair. “As our latest data tells us, crashes involving commercial motor vehicles usually result in a higher number of multiple fatalities when compared to collisions involving regular-sized vehicles. Although our officers see many safe drivers on our roads every day, those who are not need to know just how devastating and costly it can be when they fail to make safe driving decisions or do not undertake proper maintenance and truck inspections.”
During the campaign, officers and their MTO road safety partners were ensuring that commercial truck drivers were driving safely and that their trucks were being properly inspected and maintained.