Yet, traffic fatalities involving trucks have steadily declined during the past 50 years, except for a small spike upward in the early 1980s right after the trucking industry was deregulated. Fatalities due to accidents involving semi-trucks total 3,000 annually on average, with 98 percent of those fatalities suffered by occupants in passenger vehicles that collided with a truck. As motorists who must share the road with semi trucks, we can do our part to help reduce this number even further if we simply take the time to follow a few simple driving rules and try to understand how difficult it is to maneuver a tractor-trailer in traffic. I asked Michael Taylor, transportation special programs developer for the Tractor Trailer Training Program at Triton College in River Grove, Ill., what the top five pet peeves truckers had with fellow motorists were. Riding in a trucker's blind spots.
Trucks have large blind sports to the right and rear of the vehicle.
Smaller blind spots exist on the right front corner and mid-left side of the truck. The worst thing a driver can do is chug along in the trucker's blind spot, where he cannot be seen. If you're going to pass a truck, do it and get it over with. Don't sit alongside with the cruise control set 1 mph faster than the truck is traveling. Don't try to sneak into a small gap in traffic ahead of a truck.