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Inc. South Carolina State Highway Department v. Barnwell Bros.

Big Rig Road Hazards

Fatigue and lack of sleep are the number one causes of collisions involving big trucks.
A National Transportation Safety Board survey found that fatigue was a factor in 30 to 40 percent of truck accidents.
In more than 30 percent of crashes in which a truck driver died, fatigue was the most likely cause.
In one survey, at least 19 percent of truck drivers admitted to falling asleep at the wheel within the past month.
A survey of long-haul truckers driving from Washington to Minnesota demonstrated that nearly 60 percent of those trucks drove longer than they were supposed to.
Logging false hours is so common that many drivers call them "comic books" or "joke books."
Truckers attribute their willingness to break hours of service rules to financial pressures.
One out of eight traffic fatalities in 1997 resulted from an accident involving a big rig.
98 percent of the people killed in two-vehicle accidents involving a passenger vehicle and a large truck in 1997 were occupants of the passenger vehicle.
In 1997, 717 large truck occupants died, a 16 percent increase over 1996.