The National Transportation Safety Board announced Tuesday that the probable cause of a fatal January 2014 crash near Naperville, Illinois, was the truck driver’s delayed response to the stopped vehicles ahead of him in the roadway because he was fatigued due to inadequate sleep. In the 37 hours prior to the crash, the driver slept a total of less than 4.5 hours.
One person died and two people, including an Illinois State Police officer, were seriously injured in the accident on Interstate 88 on Jan. 27, 2014. A truck-tractor struck emergency vehicles that had stopped in the right lane to assist a disabled tractor trailer.
The NTSB recently included fatigue on its 2016 Most Wanted List of transportation safety improvements because it continues to cause crashes on the nation’s highways and in all modes of transportation.
“Fatigued driving kills,” NTSB Chairman Christopher A. Hart said in an NTSB press release. “Motor carriers that do not ensure that their drivers follow regulations designed to prevent fatigued driving are unsafe and should not be able to continue operating.”
