Study Says Light Trucks Improve Highway Safety

Trailerists may be pleased to hear that two Rutgers University professors say putting more
light trucks on the roads reduces traffic deaths, rather than increasing them. Douglas
Coate and James VanderHoff, economics professors, concluded that a 10 percent increase in
light-truck registrations could reduce single-vehicle crash fatalities by 15 percent and
multiple-vehicle crash deaths by 4 percent. They say that the hazards of trucks are more
than offset by their safety advantages, such as stiffer chassis and greater weight. Their
findings are to be published in Regulations, a magazine of the Cato Institute in
Washington.