Pickup truck use in the National Personal Transportation Survey
Introduction
A pickup truck is defined as a light truck with a low-sided open body. Over the past several years, pickup trucks have become increasingly popular vehicles. Pickup truck registrations increased from 27.7 million in 1987 (Bureau of the Census, 1995) to almost 36.2 million in 1997 (Bureau of the Census, 1999). Much of this increase can be attributed to the trend towards increased use of pickup trucks for personal transportation: by 1992, 73% of pickup trucks were primarily used for personal transportation (Bureau of the Census, 1995).
Pickup trucks had the highest death rate (158 per million registrations) of any class of four-wheeled passenger vehicles 1–3 years old in 1998 (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), 1999). Pickup trucks had higher death rates than cars for single vehicle crashes, but because of their mass, they had lower death rates for multiple vehicle crashes (Evans, 1994; Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), 1999).
Several occupant safety concerns are raised with the use of pickup trucks. Pickups and other light trucks have only recently been required to meet most Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards applied to passenger cars (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 1999a). Furthermore, the cargo area of the truck is sometimes used for transporting passengers (Agran et al., 1996; Anderson et al., 2000). These cargo areas are not designed to meet occupant safety standards applicable to passenger locations. About half of the states place some type of restriction on the transport of passengers in the cargo area (Christoffel et al., 2000). In addition, restraint use in the cab of the pickup truck has been reported to be lower than in other passenger vehicles (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 1999b). Drivers of pickup trucks had 60% restraint use compared to 72% for drivers of passenger cars. Restraint use for pickup truck passengers was 54% compared to 68% for passengers of automobiles (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 1999b). A number of states exempt pickup trucks from their mandatory seat belt use laws (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 1998).
We previously compared pickup-truck driver-owners to automobile driver-owners in a single California county (Anderson et al., 1999). We found that more pickup truck owners were male, age 30–39 years and married. Pickup truck drivers reported lower restraint use, more traffic citations and more risky driving behaviors, such as following too closely or not using turn signals all of the time. Differences in behaviors and attitudes were largely a function of age and gender.
The purpose of this analysis is to characterize pickup truck use in a national sample, including demographic factors, conditions of vehicle use and seat belt use, in order to guide interventions to prevent injuries to pickup truck occupants.
Section snippets
Methods
We used data from the 1995 National Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS) to characterize the use of pickup trucks. This survey of travel by the civilian, non-institutionalized population of the US, age 5 and over, is conducted by the US Department of Transportation. It uses a stratified cluster sampling method to collect data on households, vehicles owned by members of the households, persons within those households, personal trips made on a designated travel day, personal trips of 121 km (75
Results
Table 1 shows the number of observations included in the 1995 NPTS for households, drivers on the travel day and trips. Of the 409 025 person–trips reported in the interviews, 348 910 trips (85%) were in passenger vehicles, 46 247 (11%) were by other means of transportation and for 13 868 (3%), the means of transportation was not reported. To avoid including trips more than once in the analysis, we used only the 247 708 trips reported for the driver of a passenger vehicle. The weighted
Discussion
Previous data on pickup truck use and drivers have focused on regional or local data (Anderson et al., 1999). This is the first analysis of a nationally represented sample of US households to examine pickup truck ownership and use in detail. Our analysis of data from the National Personal Transportation Survey allowed us to characterize households, drivers, trips and seat belt use involving pickup trucks in comparison to other passenger vehicles. The goal of this analysis was to provide
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by Grant Number P49/CCR 91269-02 from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Latarsha Lytle provided valuable assistance with the data analysis.
References (19)
- et al.
Differences between pickup truck and automobile owner-drivers
Accident Analysis Prevention
(1999) - et al.
Fatalities to occupants of cargo areas of pickup trucks
Accident Analysis Prevention
(2000) Driver injury and fatality risk in two-car crashes versus mass ratio inferred using Newtonian mechanics
Accident Analysis Prevention
(1994)- et al.
Characteristics of child safety seat users
Accident Analysis Prevention
(1988) - et al.
Who carries passengers in the back of pickup trucks?
Accident Analysis Prevention
(1996) Impact of adult safety-belt use on restraint use among children <11 years of age-selected states, 1988 and 1989
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
(1993)- Bureau of the Census, 1995. 1992 Census of Transportation — truck inventory and use survey. US Department of Commerce,...
- Bureau of the Census, 1999. 1997 Economic Census — vehicle inventory and use survey. US Department of Commerce,...
- et al.
Developing a model law restricting the transportation of passengers in the cargo-areas of pickup trucks
Journal of Public Health Policy
(2000)
Cited by (4)
Working in light vehicles-A review and conceptual model for occupational health and safety
2007, Accident Analysis and PreventionCitation Excerpt :In 1998, 45% of US fatally injured persons were driving pick-up trucks or two to four door sedans. Pick-up trucks had the highest fatality rate of any light vehicle less than 6 years old (NIOSH, 1998; Anderson et al., 2001). A UK government survey of light vehicles found 12.4% of cars and 17.5% of light goods vehicles did not comply with road worthiness standards, nearly 10% of these having defects which prohibited further legal driving (M2 Communications Ltd., 2000).
Using unsupervised learning to investigate injury-associated factors of animal-vehicle crashes
2023, International Journal of Injury Control and Safety PromotionSustaining seat belt use in a high-use state
2014, Transportation Research RecordReducing unintentional injuries on the nation's highways: A literature review
2004, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved