Every year, there are hundreds of thousands of crashes involving large trucks. While statistics like this make some Americans afraid to share the road with semis, research shows that 80% of car-truck accidents are caused by car drivers. This led us to ask: How much do people know about driving around semi-trucks, and what are their biggest blind spots when it comes to road safety? We surveyed over 1,000 adult drivers to find out what they know (and how they feel) about driving around semis.
Key Takeaways:
- Fewer than 1 in every 20 Americans canย correctly point out all of a semi’s blind spots.ย
- 1 in 3 Americansย don’t know how to safely pass trucks on the highway.
- Around 65% of drivers who feel unsafe around semisย blame the truck or truck driver.
- 30% of Americans feel driver’s ed coursesย failed to prepare them for sharing the road with semis.
Almost No One Could Identify All of a Semi-Truck’s Blind Spots
For many of us, the last time we were quizzed on semi-truck blind spots was during driver’s edโand it might be time for a review. Our survey found that only a small fraction of Americans (4.64%) could correctly identify all of a semi’s blind spots.
We asked respondents to look at the following diagram. To answer correctly, they needed to identify every blind spot. Nineteen out of every 20 respondents missed or incorrectly identified at least one.