Provincial safety campaign aims to lessen road carnage
KAMLOOPS — In a bid to cut down on traffic fatalities, the Be Truck Aware Campaign was launched today.
Statistics show while large trucks are involved in fewer than one per cent of all crashes in B.C., they’re involved in nearly 20 per cent of fatal crashes.
Across North America, studies have shown that, in car-truck crashes, occupants of the passenger vehicle are at a far greater risk of being killed than the driver of the truck while the majority of fatal car-truck crashes are caused by passenger vehicle drivers.
Additional studies show that in fatal car-truck collisions, two-thirds or more of the incidents are found to be the fault of the passenger vehicle. In addition to that, a fully loaded transport truck travelling at 65 km/h takes 36 per cent longer to brake and stop than a passenger car travelling at the same speed. A fully loaded transport truck travelling at 105 km/h takes 66 per cent longer to brake and stop than a passenger car travelling at the same speed.