The nonprofit American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) has released an update for its Crash Predictor Model, which statistically quantifies the likelihood of future crash involvement based on specific truck driving behaviors (such as prior crashes, violations and convictions).

ATRI’s analysis draws on data from over 435,000 U.S. truck drivers over a two-year time frame to show behaviors that raise a driver’s risk of being involved in a future truck crash by more than 50%.

Updates to the Crash Predictor Model include analyses on the impact of age and gender on crash probability, plus the inclusion of industry average crash costs across six distinct crash types and severity.

“ATRI’s Crash Predictor Model is a key input to our driver hiring and training practices. Safety is our first concern and by understanding how driver histories relate to future crash probability, we can develop targeted solutions for minimizing safety risks,” said John M. Prewitt, president of Tideport Distributing Inc.

According to ATRI, key findings from the Crash Predictor Model Update include:

• The top two behaviors for predicting future crash involvement, each with more than 100% increased likelihood of a future crash, are a reckless driving violation and a failure to yield right of way violation.
• Prior crash involvement continues to have a statistically significant relationship to future crash involvement with a 74% increase of the likelihood of being in a future crash.
• Female truck drivers were safer than male counterparts in every statistically significant safety behavior, and men were 20% more likely to be involved in a crash than women.
• Several stable behaviors have emerged across all three ATRI Crash Predictor Models (2005, 2011 and 2018) as statistically significant predictors of future crash involvement including convictions for improper lane/location, reckless/careless/inattentive/negligent driving and improper or erratic lane change.
• Understanding that traffic enforcement, particularly those activities that target the crash predictor behaviors, is an effective tool for mitigating crashes, ATRI also provides a list of “top tier” states which emphasizes those states that have proven track records of maximizing their enforcement resources while minimizing their share of the nation’s truck crashes. Indiana tops that list, followed by New Mexico, Washington, California and Maryland.