They can be as long as a ten story building is high and have two to three trailers. Once the industry has its foot in the door on these corridors, there will be no turning back. Then shippers and trucking companies will lobby to allow even bigger trucks on more roads. In 1995, there were 578 persons killed in crashes involving large trucks in Canada. Another 12,057 were injured.
Seniors are most at risk from collisions with big trucks.
Americans over 65 are involved in fatal accidents with heavy trucks three times as often as drivers aged 16-64. In a collision between a car and a tractor-trailer truck, the car occupants are 29 times more likely to be killed. The threat to car occupants from the impact of a collision increases if the car collides with a longer combination vehicle. The probability of death and injury increases with truck weight. Many ramps and urban intersections were not designed to handle bigger trucks.