New Jersey Fatal Bus Accident Statistics
For the year 2015, New Jersey reported 51 fatalities involving large trucks and buses. This is a significant decrease from the 74 reported in 2014. The deaths came as a result of 49 fatal crashes, which is also a decline from the 69 recorded the year before. A total of 58 large vehicles were involved as opposed to 81 from 2014. This information comes from a report by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
Twenty-one of the accidents involved just the one vehicle while the other 28 were multiple-vehicle accidents. According to research for nationwide statistics, the majority of large vehicle crashes include two vehicles.
New Jersey has a fatality rate per million people of 5.47 for 2015, which is down slightly from 2010 with 5.91. The numbers are much lower than the national average of 11.19. Overall, fatality rates had decreased since 1975 when the rate was 5.57 per million miles driven. In 2014, that number was 1.77 nationally. There were more buses registered in 2014 with over 870,000 than in 1975 with over 460,000.
The majority of fatal accidents involve transit and intercity buses with school buses coming in third. A bus is defined by the ability to carry more than seven passengers, not counting the driver. Van-buses are a more recent category added, and they have fewer fatalities than the others.
Most New Jersey counties reported at least one fatality for 2015, but most of them had fewer than six. The one exception came from a county in the northeastern part of the state. Bergen County had a total of seven accidents for the year, which was a significant decrease from 2014 when there were 13 recorded. That was a vast increase from the year before when there were four for 2013.