A new scientific study was released with information regarding the death of CMV, also known as commercial motor vehicle, drivers in 2022. The data shows evidence of the protection that comes with wearing a seat belt, as a majority of the deaths of CMV drivers in 2022 were due to accidents in which the driver did not put their seat belt on. Wearing seat belts is a legal requirement for any driver in most places, but many still try to get away with not wearing them, especially truck drivers. Safety regulators have been essentially begging truck drivers for years to wear the safety belts, as they of all people most definitely need the protection. Now, we see that the safety regulators were correct after all.
According to the newly released data, about seven out of every ten truck driver fatalities involved a driver without their seat belt on.
To get more specific, there were 916 reported deaths of truck drivers in accidents. Of the 916 deaths, 635 of the drivers were without their seat belts. To break that down, that is around 69.3% of the deaths. Because of the disturbingly high number, it makes you wonder how many of the deaths could have instead been avoided if the driver had simply had their seat belt on.
This information is all authentic and being released straight from the source, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In particular, this info is coming from their Fatality Analysis Reporting System. 2022’s numbers show the second highest percentage of seat beltless driver deaths for truck drivers since 2017.
The agency is working on ways to better promote drivers to wear their seat belts.
Despite the alarming numbers, many drivers continue to go without their seat belts. At this point, the safety benefits are well known to truckers, but they still decide to go beltless when driving. The agency is having to turn to other ways of advertising to encourage wearing a seat belt, something that feels unnecessary to have to do because one would hope drivers want to wear the extra layer of safety protection.
