Crash rates
Commercial vehicle crashes often include a lorry carrying freight. The high centre of gravity of these lorries, combined with a high speed can cause them to rollover; jackknifing can occur when they pull trailers or semi-trailers. Their large and highly positioned mass and construction make lorries a greater danger to other road users than buses.
Regarding vans, there are, on average, about twice as many casualties among their collision opponents than among their occupants. In the case of jeeps/pick-ups, because of their large mass and their shape, for instance high and heavy bumpers and the presence of bull bars, the number of severely injured among the collision opponents even is eight times as high.
In spite of the strongly fluctuating annual crash numbers, commercial transport, like other traffic sectors, shows a decreasing trend of fatal crash involvement. Nevertheless, in 2003 the number of fatal crashes per 100 million vehicle kilometres driven by lorries was three times higher than for cars and vans. However, the decline in death rates is levelling off for all types of motorized vehicle.