Weather and Climate Impacts on Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has an interest in how adverse weather may influence trucking industry practices, and what climate change might mean for future FMCSA efforts to reduce weather-related crashes. Weather conditions influence commercial motor vehicle (CMV) operations and driver safety through wet pavement, impaired visibility, heavy precipitation, frozen precipitation, flooding, high winds, extremes of temperature, and other factors. Climate variability and climate change may also increase these exposures by affecting the distribution, frequency, or intensity of those weather events. Regional, State, and/or local impacts projected by climate change studies may have future implications for CMV safety. Should climate change result in more frequent or intense storms affecting CMVs, the historic decline in weather-related crashes may level off. This could pose challenges to FMCSA’s primary mission, and the agency may need to explore different strategies for reducing weather-related crashes, such as education and training programs or technologies that could alert drivers of adverse weather conditions.

• 
• Record URL:
  • https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/11531
• Corporate Authors:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, 55 Broadway
  Cambridge, MA  United States  02142

  Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Rossetti, Michael A
  • Johnsen, Michael
• Publication Date: 2011-4

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Appendices; Bibliography; Figures; Glossary; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 88p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Climate; Climate change; Commercial vehicle operations; Commercial vehicles; Truck crashes; Trucking safety; Weather conditions
• Subject Areas: Motor Carriers; Safety and Human Factors; I80: Accident Studies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01344980
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: FMCSA-RRA-11-013
• Files: NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Jul 20 2011 7:25AM