Truck safety spans vehicle exposure, crashes, roadside inspections, carrier oversight, worker injuries, and the economic consequences of collisions. The following U.S. statistics use explicit definitions and periods, with observed counts distinguished from estimates and modeled costs.
Key Truck Safety Statistics
These figures summarize the most useful truck safety measures across the available U.S. data:
- In 2022, 5,476 fatal crashes involved large trucks and buses in the United States.
- In 2022, 548,000 estimated nonfatal crashes involved large trucks and buses in the United States.
- In 2022, large trucks and buses were involved in 14.0% of the nation’s 39,221 fatal crashes.
- In 2022, large trucks and buses were involved in 9.30% of an estimated 5,892,000 U.S. nonfatal crashes.
- Fatal crashes involving large trucks rose from 4,502 in 2019 to 5,279 in 2022 in the United States.
- In 2022, 241 large-truck fatal crashes occurred in work zones in the United States.
- In 2023, truck transportation recorded 484 fatal occupational injuries in the United States.
- In 2023, 625 fatal transportation-incident injuries occurred in the U.S. truck transportation industry.
- In 2023, 2,909,709 driver inspections were conducted by FMCSA in the United States.
- In 2023, 6.4% of U.S. driver inspections had an out-of-service violation.
- In 2023, 839,638 full Level I inspections were recorded in the United States.
- In 2023, 1,057,511 walk-around Level II inspections were recorded in the United States.
- In 2023, 12,329 carrier investigations were recorded by FMCSA in the United States.
- In 2022, estimated costs of all large-truck and bus crashes reached $152 billion in the United States.
- In fiscal year 2023, FMCSA grant awards totaled $602,229,660 in the United States.
Contents
- Fleet scale, exposure, and oversight
- Truck crash statistics and fatality trends
- Injury, nonmotorist, and work-zone data
- Inspection and out-of-service statistics
- Enforcement, investigations, and compliance
- Crash costs and safety-program investment
Fleet Scale, Exposure, and Truck Safety Oversight
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s 2024 Pocket Guide places truck safety within a much larger U.S. vehicle system. Its 2022 vehicle census counted 283,400,986 registered vehicles across all vehicle types, including 11,083,997 single-unit trucks, 3,249,824 combination trucks, and 954,119 buses.
| Vehicle population | United States, 2022 |
|---|---|
| All registered vehicles | 283,400,986 |
| Registered single-unit trucks | 11,083,997 |
| Registered combination trucks | 3,249,824 |
| Registered buses | 954,119 |
The same guide reports 3,196.2 billion vehicle miles traveled by all motor vehicles in 2022. This is an exposure denominator for the full motor-vehicle population, not a truck-only mileage measure, so it should not be read as truck miles traveled.
FMCSA listed 55,357 certified medical examiners in August 2024. A provider with offices in multiple states can be counted once in each state, which limits direct interpretation as a unique-person total.
The safety inspection workforce included 13,597 safety inspectors in 2019 and 13,564 in 2023. FMCSA notes that not all listed personnel were assigned full-time to inspections.
Source: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics 2024.
Truck Crash Statistics and Fatality Trends
For FMCSA’s crash tables, a large truck has a gross vehicle weight rating above 10,000 pounds, while a bus has at least nine seats including the driver. These definitions matter because other truck datasets can use different coverage rules.
In 2022, large trucks and buses were involved in 5,476 fatal crashes, representing 14.0% of the nation’s 39,221 fatal crashes. The same year produced an estimated 548,000 nonfatal large-truck-and-bus crashes, or 9.30% of an estimated 5,892,000 nonfatal crashes.
| Measure | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fatal crashes involving large trucks | 4,502 | 4,423 | 5,178 | 5,279 |
| Fatal crashes involving buses | 234 | 164 | 205 | 213 |
The large-truck series rose from 4,502 fatal crashes in 2019 to 5,279 in 2022. FMCSA cautions that comparisons involving 2016 and later require care because vehicle classification changed and 329 light pickup trucks were reclassified.
The nonfatal figures are estimates from the Crash Report Sampling System, a probability sample rounded to the nearest thousand. They are not an exact census count, unlike the Fatality Analysis Reporting System count of fatal crashes.
Source: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics 2024.
Truck Injury, Nonmotorist, and Work-Zone Safety Data
Work zones are a distinct setting for truck safety analysis. FMCSA’s FARS classification uses construction, maintenance, or utility warning indicators to identify a work zone.
| Year | Large-truck fatal crashes in work zones | All fatal crashes in work zones |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 249 | 765 (2.3% of all fatal crashes) |
| 2020 | 205 | 780 (2.2%) |
| 2021 | 291 | 878 (2.2%) |
| 2022 | 241 (4.6% of large-truck fatal crashes) | 821 (2.1%) |
The occupational data describe related but different populations. In 2023, transportation and material-moving occupations recorded 1,495 fatal work injuries and represented 28.3% of all fatal work injuries; the group is broader than truck drivers.
Its fatal work-injury rate fell from 14.6 to 13.6 per 100,000 full-time-equivalent workers from 2022 to 2023.
For heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers specifically, fatal injuries declined 11.9% in 2023 from 2022, although the cited BLS release excerpt does not provide the underlying count here.
Within the U.S. truck transportation industry, NAICS 484, BLS recorded 484 fatal occupational injuries in 2023. The event and exposure categories included 625 fatal injuries from transportation incidents and 35 fatal injuries from violent acts; these categories should not be added to the industry total because they describe event classifications within the same industry data.
Sources: Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries News Release – 2023 A01 Results and TABLE A-1: Fatal occupational injuries by industry and event or exposure, all United States, 2023.
Truck Inspection and Out-of-Service Statistics
Roadside inspection activity shows the scale of direct safety oversight, while an out-of-service rate measures the share of inspections with an OOS violation. Inspection counts are not counts of unique drivers.
| Year | Driver inspections | Driver OOS rate |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 3,355,104 | 5.1% |
| 2020 | 2,471,877 | 5.2% |
| 2021 | 2,770,826 | 6.1% |
| 2022 | 2,886,281 | 6.9% |
| 2023 | 2,909,709 | 6.4% |
FMCSA recorded 3,355,104 driver inspections in 2019, falling to 2,471,877 in 2020 before reaching 2,909,709 in 2023. The driver OOS rate reached 6.9% in 2022 and was 6.4% in 2023.
In 2023, full Level I inspections numbered 839,638 and walk-around Level II inspections numbered 1,057,511. Level I inspections with an OOS violation numbered 231,130, while Level II inspections with an OOS violation numbered 290,081; an inspection can contain multiple violations.
Source: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics 2024.
Truck Enforcement, Investigations, and Compliance Statistics
FMCSA’s intervention series tracks carrier investigations rather than every carrier or every safety event. The count was 13,040 investigations in 2019, 11,460 in 2020, 12,342 in 2021, 12,518 in 2022, and 12,329 in 2023.
| Year | Carrier investigations |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 13,040 |
| 2020 | 11,460 |
| 2021 | 12,342 |
| 2022 | 12,518 |
| 2023 | 12,329 |
The 2023 total therefore represents a national intervention count for that calendar year, not a compliance rate or a measured reduction in crashes. It should be read alongside inspection activity and OOS results, because each measure covers a different stage of oversight.
Source: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics 2024.
Truck Crash Costs and Safety-Program Investment
FMCSA estimated that all large-truck-and-bus crashes cost $152 billion in 2022 dollars. The modeled total includes value-of-life, delay, and environmental components, so it is not an observed total of insurer payments, claims, or government spending.
| Crash category | Estimated 2022 cost |
|---|---|
| Fatal crashes | $83 billion |
| Injury crashes | $49 billion |
| Property-damage-only crashes | $21 billion |
| All large-truck-and-bus crashes | $152 billion |
FMCSA’s adjusted estimates for all large-truck-and-bus crashes were $143 billion in 2019, $127 billion in 2020, and $148 billion in 2021. These are 2022-adjusted dollars, while the category estimates above are stated in 2022 dollars for 2022.
Safety-program funding provides an investment measure, not a direct outcome measure. In fiscal year 2023, FMCSA awarded $471,322,500 through the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program, $83,214,717 through High Priority grants, $44,692,443 through the CDL Program Implementation grant program, and $3,000,000 through CMVOST grants.
FMCSA reported total grant awards of $602,229,660 in fiscal year 2023 across the listed programs. Grant awards do not by themselves measure crash reduction or return on investment.
Source: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics 2024.
The dataset’s definitions should remain visible when comparing measures: FARS is a census of fatal crashes, CRSS is a probability sample producing rounded estimates, and FMCSA’s modeled costs are adjusted estimates rather than direct payments. BLS CFOI covers fatal work injuries and excludes illness-related deaths unless an injury event precipitated them.