Group pushes standards for fleet truck safety practices

An industry group created to improve fleet trucking safety practices has launched an initiative to create new transportation standards to reduce accidents and save lives, according to Together for Safer Roads (TSR).

New York-based TSR is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that is focused on building cross-sector partnerships. The group says its “Fleet Trucking Global Safety Standards Initiative” is a global undertaking to develop a set of shared fleet trucking safety standards, with the potential to save tens of thousands of lives over the next several decades.

Those standards could include the use of devices such as telematics, pedestrian detection systems, automatic braking, airbags, side curtain airbags, side view mirrors, seatbelts, and others, TSR said. The new plan launched on Monday, just before the 7th Annual UN Global Road Safety Week got underway.

“Together for Safer Roads applauds the United Nations and World Health Organization’s efforts to promote road safety and their goal to reduce road deaths and injuries by half of their current rates by 2030 – and eventually reach Vision Zero, the elimination of all traffic fatalities and severe injuries,” TSR Executive Director Peter Goldwasser said in a release. “In line with these goals, TSR is launching this exciting new initiative to establish industry standards for fundamental safety instruments, which will ultimately result in a comprehensive suite of recommended standards for a broad cross-section of critical safety instruments and technologies… We know from fleet trucking experts that there are no universally shared industry standards for these safety instruments. Our goal is to change that.”

TSR says its track record include a project in the state of São Paulo, which experienced a 13% reduction in road fatalities across 64 towns and cities after implementing TSR’s recommended Vision Zero strategies. And Shanghai municipality saw a 90% reduction in intervening road fatalities. 

Future programs include a Truck of the Future pilot program with vehicles from the City of New York that identifies and tests innovative and cost-effective solutions to eliminate collisions between large vehicle operators and vulnerable road users, and an expansion of the pilot later in 2023 to a private sector fleet in Mexico City.