The American Transportation Research Institute has released its annual Operational Costs of Trucking report looking at costs for 2024, which serves as a benchmarking tool for fleets for industry costs, key performance metrics and revenue.
It’s probably not surprising to most in trucking that all-in trucking costs were mostly flat in 2024 from 2023, falling by just 0.4% to $2.26 a mile. If you take the cost of fuel out of the equation, however, costs actually increased by 3.6% from 2023 to $1.78 a mile. Click on link below to see video.
https://youtu.be/QvTslNd_NpI
Doug Marcello
Why It Matters
Every post-2000 truck is a rolling recording system capturing data that could save your company millions – or cost you everything in litigation.
The Big Picture
Your vehicle’s electronic control module (ECM) records digital documentation of operations: speed, braking patterns, clutch engagement, engine load, and cruise control activation.
How the Digital Witness Works
Continuous streaming: ECMs capture real-time data as trucks move, creating comprehensive records of vehicle performance and driver behavior.
Trigger events: The system preserves data when vehicles exceed G-force limits – hard braking, sudden impact, or dramatic speed/direction changes.
The preservation window: Manufacturers save several seconds of data on a fraction-of-a-second basis, showing exact speed approaching impact, brake application timing, and deceleration metrics.
The “last stop” feature: Some manufacturers maintain ongoing records of recent streaming data, preserving final moments even without triggering events.
The Data Destruction Trap
Here’s the problem: “Last stop” data disappears the moment you move your truck or activate the ECM post-accident.
Think about it: Once the vehicle moves or system activates, it’s no longer recording the “last stop” – data gets overwritten like recording over your wedding video.
The exception: Hard brake or sudden impact triggering events preserve data for that timeframe regardless of subsequent actions.
The vulnerability: Minor accidents—slow stops, sideswipes, minor impacts—may not trigger recording systems, leaving you without documentation when facing aggressive legal pursuit.
What’s At Stake
In today’s “jackpot justice” environment, this data represents the difference between proving minimal impact and facing inflated claims from billboard lawyers targeting minor accidents.
The Bottom Line
Your ECM data isn’t just diagnostic information – it’s your first line of defense against aggressive litigation. Every day without proper preservation protocols means gambling your company’s financial future on every mile your trucks travel.
Click on link below to see Doug’s video.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/q0BYDhRbyYg?feature=share
Washington D.C. (May 30, 2025) – Law enforcement personnel in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. will conduct commercial motor vehicle inspections, educate drivers and motor carriers about the importance of brake safety, and provide brake inspection and violation data to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) for this year’s Brake Safety Week, scheduled for Aug. 24-30.
CVSA-certified inspectors will conduct routine commercial motor vehicle inspections throughout the week, focusing on brake systems and components. In addition, inspectors will focus on drums and rotors – the emphasis for this year’s brake-safety initiative. Brake drum and rotor issues may affect a vehicle’s brake efficiency. Broken pieces of drums and rotors may become dislodged from the vehicle enroute and damage other vehicles or result in injuries or fatalities to the motoring public.
Commercial motor vehicles found to have brake-related out-of-service violations, or any other out-of-service violations, will be removed from roadways until those violations are corrected.
During Brake Safety Week, inspectors will capture data about commercial motor vehicle inspections, brake systems and components, and brake-related violations and report that data to CVSA. Some jurisdictions will use performance-based brake testers (PBBT) to assess the braking performance of vehicles and submit PBBT-specific data to the Alliance. CVSA will collect and analyze all data and report the results publicly later this year.
In addition, brake-safety educational efforts by inspectors, motor carriers and others in the industry take place during Brake Safety Week and are integral to the success of the campaign. CVSA also offers resources to help drivers, motor carriers, owner-operators and mechanics prepare for Brake Safety Week.
Brake Safety Week aims to improve commercial motor vehicle brake safety throughout North America. The goal is to eliminate roadway crashes by conducting roadside inspections and educating drivers, mechanics, large- and small-fleet motor carriers, owner-operators, and others on the importance of proper brake inspection, maintenance and operation.
By Eric Teoh, Director of Statistical Service, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
The commercial motor vehicles (CMV) industry is a key component of America’s economy, transporting over $700.4 billion worth of goods each year. While the safe operation of CMVs clearly has economic benefits, perhaps more important is that those CMV drivers are also entrusted with the lives of those they transport and those they encounter on our nation’s roads. Due to the size and weight of many CMVs, there is an inherent risk involved in their operation. As such, it is important for all stakeholders to take actions that improve CMV safety. Of note, data collection is crucial in enhancing the safety of the commercial motor vehicle industry by enabling monitoring of driver behavior, vehicle maintenance, and compliance with safety regulations.
A key reason for accurate and comprehensive record-keeping is to hold drivers who operate these large vehicles accountable for bad driving behaviors. Our justice system plays a critical role in ensuring that the drivers and companies operating these large vehicles obey the rules of the road and the rules of their commercial operation. Enforcing these rules translates into real-world reductions in crash risk, as shown in a study, Crash risk factors for interstate large trucks in North Carolina, my colleagues and I completed several years ago and is still relevant today.
For this study, we partnered with the University of North Carolina’s Highway Safety Research Center and with the North Carolina Highway Patrol. Additional data were obtained from a brief questionnaire form for truck drivers and from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates trucking companies engaged in interstate commerce.
This study identified factors that increase large trucks’ crash risk by assessing large trucks involved in crashes and comparing them to control trucks. Trucks involved in crashes were eligible to be in the study if:
- the crash involved a fatality or injury with medical transport,
- and 2) if a Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance Level 1 post-crash inspection was conducted.
For each crash-involved truck in our sample, we selected a control truck of the same type at approximately the same location as the crash and about the same time of day and part of the week (weekend vs. weekday). Each control truck selected also was subjected to a Level 1 inspection. This is known as a matched case-control study design. To ensure consistency in vehicles and in the rules they are subject to, we restricted the sample to trucks with gross vehicle weight ratings over 26,000 pounds and operated by interstate trucking companies.
A key reason for accurate and comprehensive record-keeping is to hold drivers who operate these large vehicles accountable for bad driving behaviors. This type of study in which the goal is to identify factors that increase large trucks’ crash risk is different than a crash causation study. For example, consider a situation where a car passes a truck, enters its lane, and slows rapidly. Arguably, the car’s maneuver is the main causal factor, but the presence or absence of truck brake defects could be the difference between a crash and an avoidance maneuver. So, if we are able to compare trucks with brake defects and those without, then we may be able to identify this as a risk factor. Using this theory, we employed a more statistically efficient way to do this by comparing crash-involved trucks with a control sample to look for differences in brake defects and other types of violations.
A common theme of the study’s findings was that violating rules was associated with increased crash risk. For instance, having inspection violations for vehicle defects (e.g., out-of-adjustment brakes, defective tires, inoperable lights) tripled the risk of crashing. For vehicle defect violations severe enough to put the truck out of-service, crash risk more than quadrupled. These results align with a similar study we published in 1989.
We found it was not just the truck’s history that mattered; the record of the driver and the company mattered as well. Drivers with one or more moving violations per year, on average, had a 30% higher crash risk than drivers with fewer moving violations. Drivers with out-of-service logbook violations had 50% higher crash risk. Drivers working for companies with histories of violations and crashes also had elevated crash risk. For instance, drivers for companies in which at least 10% of their roadside inspections resulted in trucks being placed out-of-service had 31% higher crash risk, and those driving for companies with over 100 crashes per 1,000 power units in the past two years had 71% higher crash risk.
Research studies like this and the development of appropriate interventions are only possible with accurate and robust recordkeeping. Moreover, for these efforts to be successful, records must accurately represent driver and motor carrier behavior. Charges that are adjudicated in such a manner that do not allow the behaviors to be accurately reflected on the driver and motor carrier records preclude studies from accurately measuring the association between specific violations and crash risk. Holding CDL holders and motor carriers accountable for their dangerous behaviors is just one step, albeit a vital one, in preventing large truck crashes.
Recognizing that enforcement alone cannot prevent crashes and their tragic outcomes, the Department of Transportation has adopted the Safe System Approach to address and mitigate risks in our transportation system. Acknowledging that humans make mistakes, the Safe System Approach addresses this by building and reinforcing multiple layers of protection to both prevent crashes and minimizing harm when crashes occur. Beyond rules and enforcement, other aspects of a Safe System for trucking would include addressing speed with technologies such as speed limiters and intelligent speed assistance and by setting and enforcing reasonable speed limits, equipping large trucks with strong rear and side underride guards, equipping trucks with crash avoidance technology, equipping other vehicles with crash avoidance technology that appropriately detects trucks, and establishing policies at every level that prioritize safety. Holding CDL holders and motor carriers accountable for their dangerous behaviors is just one step in preventing large truck crashes.
None of these are new ideas, but they are essential if we are to address the more than 4,000 lives lost each year due to large truck crashes—and the more than 40,000 people killed in all motor vehicle crashes. Road safety is a shared responsibility, and to that end, IIHS recently put forward a vision called 30×30 to reduce traffic fatalities 30% by 2030.5 This goal is ambitious but achievable and would put us closer to the ultimate goal of eliminating traffic fatalities. It involves doing the things we know are effective and doing them broadly. No single organization can achieve 30×30 alone. Please join us in working toward this vision and help ensure that more people arrive safely at their destinations.
