Technical inspection of vehicles in order to eliminate JACKKNIFE accidents

Abstract

Traffic accidents involving articulated vehicles are characterized by severe consequences and great material damage. Particularly accidents involving articulated vehicles such as tractors with semi-trailers have these aforementioned characteristics. In a large number of accidents involving these vehicles, the main cause of the accident is the human factor, while in others it may be caused by technical failure on the tractor or semi-trailer, road conditions, unfavorable road characteristics, etc., or a combination of several conditions. According to the NHTSA data, about 6 million traffic accidents occur in the United States annually. Heavy goods vehicles are involved in about 10% of all accidents, of which more than 50% of accidents involve tractors with semi-trailers. Accidents involving tractors are caused by technical failure on vehicles in more than 30% of cases, which is significantly higher than in traffic accidents involving other types of vehicles. The most common form of these traffic accidents is a semi-trailer skid, also called jackknifing.
This paper explains the most common causes of jackknife accidents, as well as the phenomenon that is closely related to this type of accident, which in theory is called trailer swing. Special emphasis is given to the methodology of technical inspection of vehicles as a factor of preventive actions in order to eliminate technical malfunction of articulated vehicles as the cause of the destabilization of tractors or semi-trailers.