Report looks at who is to blame for big rig crashes in Nashville

A new report took a deep dive into crash data from the Nashville area to determine who is really at fault — truck drivers or car drivers — for the uptick in big rig crashes in the area.

News station WSMV says that crashes involving tractor trailers are increasing in the Nashville area, with 700 more of these types of crashes occurring in 2018 than in 2014.

WSMV also mapped every crash involving a semi truck that happened in the Nashville area in the past two years and found that most occurred on I-40 and I-24.

The report also looked at who is to blame and found that car drivers were “nearly as responsible for crashes as tractor-trailer drivers.” Citing data from the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP), they concluded that truck drivers were at fault in 53% of crashes, while car drivers were to blame in 47% of crashes in the Nashville area. 

The THP data indicated that the most common way for a car driver to cause a crash with a semi truck was to change lanes improperly. When truck drivers are at fault for crashes, Tennessee troopers say that following too closely is usually to blame. 

An often cited 2013 report from the American Trucking Associations (ATA) using data from across the county found that in fatal car/semi truck crashes, car drivers were assigned blame 81% of the time. The WSMV report did not distinguish between fatal and non-fatal crashes. 

You can view the report below.