Safety Matters
- Continually Improving: At the national level, the truck-involved fatal crash rate for 2006 was 1.93 fatal crashes per 100 million vehicle miles of travel (VMT). This rate is at its lowest point since the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) began keeping these records in 1975. The injury crash rate for 2006 was 34.4 injury crashes per 100 million vehicle miles of travel (VMT), also at its lowest point since DOT recordkeeping began.
- Sharing the Road: The trucking industry is committed to sharing the road safely with all vehicles. The Share the Road program sends a team of professional truck drivers to communities around the country to teach car drivers about truck blind spots, stopping distances and safe merging around large trucks, all designed to reduce the number of car-truck accidents.
- Safety First: Colorado Motor Carriers Association members put safety first through improved driver training, investment in advanced safety technologies and active participation in industry safety initiatives at the local, state and national levels.
Trucking and the Environment
- Air Quality: Trucking has made greater strides in air quality than any other vehicles on our highways today. A 2006 truck is 10 times cleaner than a 1988 one with a 98% reduction in PM and NOx.
- Emissions: Trucks make up a small percentage of the state’s emissions. While truck travel has grown substantially in areas such as the Denver Region, diesel emissions have dropped.
- Efficiency: Fuel efficiency has increased by over 30% since 1982.
NOTE: Last Updated August 2008 using 2006, 2007, and 2008 data when available. This page is updated periodically to reflect the most recent statistics.
Facts About the Colorado Trucking Industry
Trucking Drives Colorado’s Economy
- Employment: The trucking industry in Colorado provides 146,212 jobs, or one out of 15 in the state. Total trucking industry wages paid in Colorado are $7.1 billion, with an average annual trucking industry salary of $48,491. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that truck drivers, heavy, tractor-trailer and light, delivery drivers, hold 40,680 jobs with a mean annual salary of $33,595.
- Small Business Emphasis: There are 17,330 trucking companies located in Colorado, most of them small, locally owned businesses. These companies are served by a wide range of supporting businesses both large and small.
- Transportation of Essential Products: Trucks transport 92 percent of total manufactured
tonnage in the state or 400,548 tons per day. 79 percent of communities depend exclusively on trucks to move their goods.
Trucks Pay Their Fair Share and More in Taxes
- As an Industry: The trucking industry in Colorado pays approximately $493.8 million in federal and state roadway taxes and fees. The industry pays 36 percent of all taxes and fees owed by Colorado motorists, despite trucks representing only 7 percent of vehicle miles traveled in the state.
- Individual Companies: A typical five-axle tractor-semitrailer combination pays $8,555 in state highway user fees and taxes in addition to $8,959 in federal user fees and taxes. These taxes are over and above the typical taxes paid by businesses in Colorado.
- Roadway Use: Colorado has 88,021 miles of public roads over which all motorists traveled 48 billion miles. Trucking’s use of Colorado public roads was 3.4 billion miles.