Tanker Truck Company Improves Safety Dramatically with Blinking Rear Lights

Recently, FleetOwner, an online magazine covering the commercial transportation industry, published an article highlighting how one trucking company implemented new technology to reduce collisions amongst its fleet.[1] Groendyke Transport of Oklahoma installed blinking amber lights on the back of its tanker trucks at a cost of $150 per light.

Groendyke had already made a significant capital investment in their safety program with the installation of collision mitigation systems and forward-facing radars. The next safety problem Groendyke wanted to tackle was the problem of other drivers crashing into the back of their trucks.

Immediately after the gradual implementation of these rear blinking brake lights, drivers began noticing different driver behaviors – drivers behind them changing lanes or slowing more quickly upon the truck depressing its brakes. For a couple of years, the company tracked rear-end accident data in vehicles equipped with the lights and those without.

Blinking brake lights significantly reduced rear-end semi-truck collisions

What they found over two years, and more than 90 million miles driven, was that the trailers with the blinking amber lights experienced nearly 34% fewer rear-end crashes. The FleetOwner article goes into much more detail into why they believe the blinking brake lights worked and the various regulatory hurdles Groendyke had to overcome in implementing this new safety feature. I would recommend reading to anyone interested in highway safety.

Putting safety before profits saves more money in the long run

The Groendyke rear lights testing shows what good can happen from trucking companies that make safety a priority. Groendyke must be commended for this implantation, and we hope that other trucking operations follow in their footsteps by installing these or similar lights on their own trailers.

Unfortunately, as we have seen over and over again in our clients’ cases, many trucking companies are not like Groendyke. Most of the trucking companies that have catastrophically injured or killed our clients have put profits in front of people.

In a similar situation to Groendyke, many of the defendants in our cases would have looked at the $150 per trailer cost and determined that it was too high of a cost to bear. Even when you look only at the bottom line, imagine how much money this trucking company saved in property damage to its own fleet and defending against lawsuits by reducing the overall rear-end collisions involving its trailers by more than a third.

Placing a priority on safety not only makes sense ethically – it makes sense financially.

[1] https://www.fleetowner.com/safety/article/21132729/blinking-lights-cut-tanker-truck-crashes-by-nearly-34