Among the many interrelated causes of truck accidents, vehicle-related topics play a critical, if somewhat unrecognized and underreported role. In many cases, these factors, if they do not directly cause an accident to occur, make it more difficult —or in some cases, impossible— for a driver to recover from an error or avoid an unforeseen conflict. Once a crash occurs, the way trucks are designed can affect the severity of the trauma sustained by the occupants of all the vehicles involved.

This paper highlishts the fact that efforts to prevent truck accidents could be substantially aided by working to upgrade the performance of the truck brake systems as well as truck handling and stability properties—especially as it relates to their tendency to rollover. Truck occupant crash protection could be enhanced by improving truck occupant restraint systems, providing a reasonable amount of protection from post-crash fires, making cab interiors free of sharp, hard objects that can cause injury during impact—especially steering wheel rims and hubs, and by improving cab designs to provide occupant survival space in a crash. Finally, an opportunity also exists —by working on the designs of the front ends of trucks— to reduce the number of fatalities among occupants of other vehicles killed in collisions with medium and heavy trucks.