Each year since 2021, there have been more than 40,000 fatalities annually in the U.S., and while the 40,990 deaths in the U.S. last year were the lowest over the three-year period, it is still more than 8,000 higher than a decade earlier.
Reviewing data from more than 1.3 million commercial drivers using the Motive platform, and analyzing more than 45 million collision events in the U.S. from July 2023 to July 2024, Motive focused on identifying dangerous routes and analyzing collision data to understand when, where, and why accidents occur, and released its report Sunday at the American Trucking Associations Management Conference and Exhibition in Nashville.
"There is a safety epidemic on our highways right now," said Ryan Plutnicki, Motive's chief customer officer.
For every 10,000 vehicles on the road each month, there is an average of 84 commercial vehicle collisions in the U.S. – one collision for every 120 vehicles, according to Motive's findings. Hamish Woodrow, Motive's head of strategic analytics, added most crashes in the country occur on weekdays between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., and Motive saw the highest collision rates when vehicles were moving slowly, indicating most collisions occur in high-traffic situations, parking lots, during local transportation of people or goods, and other slow-moving scenarios.
"We've never had as many truck stop accidents as we've had the last two years," said PGT Trucking (CCJ Top 250, No. 78) President Gregg Troian.
When moving at higher speeds, collision rates are typically highest at 60 mph, Motive uncovered.
The most dangerous roadway in America, Motive found, is Highway 41 (Tamiami Trail) and Highway 997 near Tamiami and Kendall West, Florida with between 69.3 and 76.2 collisions per 1,000 vehicles – more than double the rate of collisions than the next most dangerous: Highway 285 and Highway 123 near Pecos, Texas (32.17 collisions per 1,000 vehicles).
Abhishek Gupta, Motive's vice president of product management, noted Motive sees about 1,000 collisions per month on the Motive platform, and 54% of fatal collisions involving large trucks are in rural areas.
The report also analyzed six major metros Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Nashville and Philadelphia. Los Angeles and Detroit had the highest overall monthly collision rates (11.4 and 6.5 respectively per 10,000 vehicles on the road). In all but one of the cities analyzed (Detroit), the areas adjacent to or near their major airports saw the most collisions. Detroit has the most dangerous intersection, where I-75 and I-375 meet, with 7.2 collisions per month — a rate more than four times that of the next most dangerous in the report, Nashville’s I-40 and I-24 intersection (1.5 collisions per month).
Holiday's impact on safety
The study found that crashes involving commercial vehicles jump during the holidays, with rates increasing 32% on Christmas Day compared to the rest of the month, and speeding events increase by 10% the week leading up to that holiday.
Hours-of-service violation rates peak at Christmas and then drop in the two weeks following Christmas, according to Motive's study. Among major holidays in the last year, Christmas has the highest crash rate (54.1); New Year’s Day (43.9), and Thanksgiving (38.9), showing holidays in winter months are particularly dangerous, mostly attributable to winter weather conditions. Nearly two-thirds (65.5%) of collisions occurred under wet or snowy road conditions and nearly half (47%) of all collisions happened after dark, despite the fact there are more vehicles on the road during the day.
