Crashes and Near-Misses in Numbers: What They Cost a Small Fleet and What Actually Reduces Them

Updated September 2026

A five-truck company can have the best year it has ever had and lose it in one intersection. This guide collects what the research says about what crashes cost, what predicts them, and what reduces them — with the limits of each study stated, because in this subject the limits are usually left out.

What a crash costs

The Network of Employers for Traffic Safety publishes the standard estimate of what crashes cost employers — medical, liability, lost productivity, property damage. Its 2026 edition puts the total at $62 billion a year, and the average on-the-job crash at nearly $56,000.

The National Safety Council publishes average economic costs by severity (2024 dollars), per person injured or killed and per vehicle damaged:

Death — $2,050,000
Disabling injury — $174,000
Evident injury — $45,000
Possible injury — $28,000
No injury observed — $7,700
Property damage only — $6,600 per vehicle

Those are costs to society as a whole — wages, medical, administration, vehicle damage, the employer’s uninsured costs — not the cheque you would write. (NSC also publishes much larger "comprehensive" figures that put a value on lost quality of life; it says not to use those for economic impact, and articles mix the two up constantly.)

What neither figure shows a small operator is the part that isn’t on any invoice: the truck that is out for three weeks, the jobs it would have done, the premium at renewal, and the owner’s time.

Driving is the dangerous part of the job

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts every fatal work injury in the country. In 2024 there were 5,070. Transportation incidents were 38.2% of them (1,937) — more than any other cause — and 1,146 of those were roadway incidents. Transportation and material-moving occupations had more deaths than any other occupational group.

For a hauling or moving crew, the lifting feels like the risky part. The numbers say it is the drive.

What predicts the next crash

The American Transportation Research Institute has modelled this four times, most recently in 2022 on the records of more than 580,000 truck drivers. Its finding: more than 25 specific violations and convictions each raise a driver’s likelihood of a future crash, five of them by more than 100% — and a prior crash raises it by 113%. Five predictors held up across three or more editions of the study: a reckless driving violation, a failure-to-signal conviction, a prior crash, a failure-to-yield violation, and an improper or erratic lane-change conviction.

The federal Large Truck Crash Causation Study (963 serious crashes, 2001–2003 — old, but still the only study that sent investigators to the scene) measured what was going on when things went wrong. Compared with trucks that were not assigned the critical reason for the crash, those that were had a driver who was:

Following too closely — 22.6 times as likely
Inattentive — 17.1 times
Not looking adequately — 9.3 times
Fatigued — 8.0 times
Travelling too fast for conditions — 7.7 times
Feeling under work pressure from the carrier — 4.7 times

Look at the last line. A day with too many stops in it is a measurable crash factor, and it is the one the owner controls.

Among vehicle factors, brake problems were the most common (29% of trucks) and shifting cargo had the highest relative risk in the study — 56.3. For anyone hauling loose debris, that is the number to remember.

A misquote to avoid: the study found the driver was the critical reason for 87% of trucks that were assigned one — which was only 55% of the trucks in the study. It is not "87% of truck crashes are the trucker’s fault".

Phones

The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute put cameras in commercial truck cabs for FMCSA. Texting raised the odds of a safety-critical event about 23 times, and took the driver’s eyes off the road for nearly five seconds at a time. Using a dispatching device raised the odds about 9 times; writing, 8; reading a map, 7; dialling a handheld phone, about 3.

That is almost always reported as "23 times more likely to crash." It isn’t: a safety-critical event in that study was mostly near-crashes and unintended lane departures. The risk is real; the quote is wrong.

Note the second item on that list. A device that makes the driver read, type or hunt through screens while moving is part of the problem. Whatever your drivers use should need one tap when the truck is stopped and nothing when it isn’t.

Seat belts

FMCSA’s crash data for 2022: in fatal crashes, 45% of unbelted large-truck occupants were killed, against 8% of belted ones (482 of 1,069 against 423 of 5,417). That is a raw comparison, not a controlled estimate — but NHTSA’s controlled figures for light trucks (pickups, vans, SUVs) say the same thing: a belt cuts the risk of fatal injury by 60%.

From the same FMCSA report, for fleets at the smaller end: trucks of 10,001–14,000 lb involved in fatal crashes rose 26% between 2020 and 2022, and 82% of the people killed in large-truck crashes were not in the truck.

What reduces risk: the evidence is for a conversation

The best study we found is from NIOSH (2017): 315 vehicles at two companies — one of them in local truck transport — followed for about two years, with a control group. In-cab warning lights alone made no significant difference. Warning lights plus coaching — supervisors sitting down with drivers to watch video of their own risky moments — roughly halved the odds of risky driving behaviours compared with the control group.

An earlier FMCSA-funded evaluation of video event recorders with supervisor coaching at two carriers found safety-related events per mile fell 37% at one and 52% at the other over thirteen weeks — a before-and-after comparison with no control group.

Both measured risky behaviours and recorded events, not crashes; nobody has a controlled trial long enough to count crashes. But the pattern across both is consistent and useful: equipment that records does nothing by itself. A supervisor who sits down with the driver and goes through what happened is what changes driving. Both studies had video to talk about; what they show is that the video was worth nothing until someone had the conversation.

On vendor numbers: Verizon Connect’s 2026 survey of "nearly 900 fleet professionals" reports that 74% of video-telematics users say driver safety improved and 48% say accident costs fell. That is a company’s survey of its own market, reporting what users feel happened. It is not evidence of the kind above, and we would not plan around it.

Near-misses, and the famous triangle

You will be shown a pyramid: 300 near-misses, 29 minor injuries, 1 major injury. It comes from H. W. Heinrich’s 1931 book, it has been repeated for ninety years, and it does not hold up. Heinrich’s actual claim was about 330 accidents of the same kind happening to the same person; his "major injury" meant anything beyond first aid, not a death; the insurance files it was based on no longer exist; and safety researchers have shown that cutting minor incidents does not cut serious ones in proportion. It was never about vehicles.

What survives is the modest version: a near-miss is the cheapest information you will ever get. The driver who says "the load shifted on the ramp" or "the brakes felt soft coming down the hill" is handing you the crash report before the crash. It only works if saying so costs the driver nothing — and if somebody writes it down and does something.

What the numbers suggest doing

Check the driving record before you hand over the keys, and again every year. A prior crash and a handful of specific violations are the best predictors anyone has found.
Build days that can be driven at the speed limit. Work pressure is a measured factor, and the schedule is yours.
Secure the load, every trip. Shifting cargo carried the highest relative risk in the federal study.
Phones down while moving — including whatever app you dispatch with.
Belts, every seat, every trip, helpers included.
Fix what the pre-trip finds. Brakes were the most common vehicle factor in serious crashes and are the most common reason trucks are parked at roadside.
Talk to drivers about close calls, and don’t punish the telling. The controlled evidence is for the conversation, not the gadget.

RelayPoint, in your trade’s words: Movers · Junk removal & hauling · Roll-off & dumpsters · Landscaping & tree service · Portable sanitation & septic

Sources

This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice, and RelayPoint is not a law firm, an accountant or a compliance consultant. The figures are other organisations’ published findings, read in September 2026 at the addresses listed under Sources; they describe the businesses those organisations studied, not yours, and none of them is a result of using RelayPoint.