TRUCK MENACE

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33004, 25 August 1972, Page 9

TRUCK MENACE

Forty per cent of all car occupants killed on British motorways died when their cars were involved in collisions with trucks, “The Times’* has reported.

The newspaper says that a survey soon to be published by the Birmingham Accident Hospital notes also that occupants of a car in collision with a truck are two to three

times more likely to be killed than those involved in a collision with another car. The hospital’s research group has said that caroccupants must be “better packaged,” with car bodies being as strong as is practical, and the use of seatbelts. Second, the group nas said, because collisions between cars and trucks are so probable, trucks need to be built more safely. In particular, the rear overhang of trucks—which causes tremendous damage in the very common type of accident which involves a car running under the rear of the tray of a truck —must be eliminated, the group says. As well as this, trucks must not have loose loads. Such loads move when there is an accident, and aggravate the damage and the injuries.