The number of large trucks — commercial or noncommercial vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of at least 10,000 pounds — involved in fatal collisions has gone up by nearly 50% over the last 10 years of publicly released data analyzed by the National Safety Council.
That’s an alarming trend given how much we rely on large trucks to transport goods across the country. So to better understand it, we used the most recent data available in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a database of every fatal motor vehicle collision in America, to study the patterns from the more than 4,700 fatal crashes that involved large trucks in 2022.
Where are trucks involved in fatal crashes most often?
As is so often the case, the states with the most fatal crashes involving trucks are large-population states with multiple interstate highways. With the network of highways that trucks tend to travel on, it’s logical that Texas and California would have more crashes involving big rigs than any other state.
But when we look at the percentage of a state’s fatal crashes that involve trucks, less-populated states jump up to the top of the list. The nationwide average is 12%, or just under 1 in 8 fatal crashes, but North Dakota’s rate is more than twice as high at 27%.
| Rank/State | All fatal crashes, 2022 | Fatal truck crashes, 2022 | % of fatal crashes involving trucks |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 North Dakota | 70 | 26 | 27.1% |
| #2 Wyoming | 92 | 26 | 22% |
| #3 Nebraska | 170 | 44 | 20.6% |
| #4 Iowa | 245 | 62 | 20.2% |
| #5 New Mexico | 348 | 71 | 16.9% |
| #6 Indiana | 736 | 148 | 16.7% |
| #7 Kansas | 305 | 59 | 16.2% |
| #8 Illinois | 963 | 184 | 16% |
| #9 Oklahoma | 545 | 98 | 15.2% |
| #10 Texas | 3,368 | 598 | 15.1% |
Additionally, there were 10 states with at least five fatal truck crashes in 2021 that saw that number go up by 25% or more in 2022. North Dakota had the largest percentage increase, jumping from 11 deadly truck collisions to 26 (+136.4%), while the biggest jump in number of crashes was in Illinois, where there were 39 more truck crashes in 2022.
| Rank/State | Fatal truck crashes, 2021 | Fatal truck crashes, 2022 | % increase in fatal truck crashes |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 North Dakota | 11 | 26 | +136% |
| #2 Wyoming | 14 | 26 | +86% |
| #3 Vermont | 6 | 11 | +83% |
| #4 New Hampshire | 7 | 12 | +71% |
| #5 Connecticut | 23 | 32 | +39% |
| #6 Arizona | 95 | 132 | +39% |
| #7 Delaware | 13 | 18 | +39% |
| #8 New York | 95 | 125 | +32% |
| #9 Maryland | 40 | 51 | +28% |
| #10 Illinois | 145 | 184 | +27% |
The biggest trucks get into most of their crashes on the biggest roads.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that if trucks are involved in a crash, it’s typically on a larger roadway. Large trucks transporting loads of heavy cargo drive primarily on major highways in whatever area they’re passing through.
But the split is still enough to grab your attention. Fatal crashes are nearly three times as likely to occur on interstate highways if they involve a truck than if they don’t, and 50% more likely to happen on U.S. highways.
On the other side of the coin, non-truck crashes take place on smaller county roads or municipal streets about 2.5 times as often as truck crashes do.
The 20 Highliest Roads for Truck Crashes
Of the 20 roads in America with at least 20 fatal truck crashes in 2022, 18 were interstate highways, with the top 10 roads alone touching 41 states.
The two exceptions: U.S. Route 60, which runs from southwestern Arizona to Virginia Beach, Virginia, and U.S. Route 54, which travels northeast from El Paso, Texas — near the Mexican border — to western Illinois.
| Rank/Road | Fatal truck crashes | Rank/Road | Fatal truck crashes |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 Interstate 10 | 97 | #T-11 Interstate 55 | 27 |
| #2 Interstate 40 | 87 | #T-11 Interstate 44 | 27 |
| #3 Interstate 95 | 73 | #13 Interstate 30 | 26 |
| #4 Interstate 20 | 66 | #T-14 U.S. Route 60 | 24 |
| #5 Interstate 75 | 64 | #T-14 Interstate 94 | 24 |
| #6 Interstate 70 | 51 | #T-14 Interstate 90 | 24 |
| #7 Interstate 80 | 49 | #17 Interstate 85 | 23 |
| #8 Interstate 5 | 43 | #18 Interstate 15 | 22 |
| #9 Interstate 35 | 35 | #T-19 U.S. Route 54 | 20 |
| #10 Interstate 65 | 31 | #T-19 Interstate 81 | 20 |
The deadliest road for truck crashes in 2022 was Interstate 10, which runs through some of America’s largest cities — Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans — on its eight-state path from Santa Monica, California, to Jacksonville Florida.
I-10 saw nearly 100 fatal truck crashes, at least one in each of its states: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
But despite I-10 topping the list across its full distance, the most dangerous single stretch of highway was Interstate 20 in Texas, where 37 fatal crashes involving trucks took place.
Interactive Map: Every Fatal Truck Crash in 2022
If you zoom in on this interactive map, you can see how the truck crashes cluster along interstate highways in particular.
When are trucks getting into crashes?
Most fatal crashes that do not involve trucks tend to happen later in the day. On weekdays, heavy evening commutes and people driving as the sun is going down provide common sources of crashes; particularly on weekends, drug and alcohol impairment enters the picture. In 2022, the peak hour for non-truck crashes was 9 p.m.
But for crashes involving trucks, it’s almost the exact opposite. Late night is the lowest point, with data suggesting that truck drivers are impaired by drugs or alcohol much less often than other motorists.
Instead, the top time for fatal crashes involving large trucks is 6 a.m., with sunrise and fatigue playing a frequent role. There is also a second peak between normal commuting times, from noon to 3 p.m., when trucks may make up a larger percentage of the overall vehicles on the road.
Data sources and methodology
Crash data comes from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a database of all U.S. fatal motor vehicle collisions maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The most recent available data, covering all fatal crashes in 2022, was released to the public in April 2022.
We used fields containing crash IDs and variables related to vehicle body type to link separate tables of data on crashes, vehicles, and people in order to identify patterns among crashes involving
Additional information on truck crashes comes from the National Safety Council.
Please feel free to use the data from this analysis elsewhere, but if you do, we ask that you link back to this page and credit Dollar, Burns, Becker & Hershewe for attribution purposes.