Truck crashes in Alamance, Orange, Chatham and Caswell counties: what the federal records show
September 2026: first publication. Analysis run against the July 31, 2026 MCMIS snapshot, crash years 2021 through 2025.
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records list 1,224 reported truck-involved crashes in Alamance, Orange, Chatham and Caswell counties for 2021 through 2025, with 25 people killed and 700 injured. Only crashes meeting federal reporting criteria appear, and crash year 2025 remains provisional.
The federal government keeps a file of the serious truck crashes states report to it. I pulled the North Carolina file for the four counties I practice in and counted the crashes myself.
Some of what the file shows changes how I would start a case in one of these counties. Most of it is background. I have marked which is which and I have said plainly where the records stop.
At a glance
- Alamance County recorded 468 reported truck-involved crashes over the five years, Orange County 464, Chatham County 245 and Caswell County 47.
- A dump-body truck appeared in 49 of Chatham County's 245 reported truck crashes, against 46 of 468 in Alamance County and 29 of 464 in Orange County.
- At least one carrier headquartered outside North Carolina appeared in 256 of Alamance County's 468 crashes and 258 of Orange County's 464, against 67 of Chatham County's 245.
- 176 of the 1,292 individual truck records carried a weight rating between 10,001 and 26,000 pounds. North Carolina applies most federal safety regulations to a carrier operating only inside the state at 26,001 pounds or more, measured by rating or by actual weight, whichever is greater.
- These records report crash involvement. Federal preventability determinations are made in a separate program and do not establish legal liability, fault, or negligence.
What do federal crash records show about truck crashes in these four counties?
Federal records list 1,224 reported truck-involved crashes in Alamance, Orange, Chatham and Caswell counties for crash years 2021 through 2025. Of those, 23 crashes carried a recorded death and 509 carried a recorded injury.
| County | Reported truck crashes | Crashes with a death | People killed | Crashes with an injury | People injured |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alamance | 468 | 8 | 10 | 188 | 276 |
| Orange | 464 | 10 | 10 | 191 | 257 |
| Chatham | 245 | 4 | 4 | 114 | 142 |
| Caswell | 47 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 25 |
| All four counties | 1,224 | 23 | 25 | 509 | 700 |
Exception: A crash enters this file only if it met the federal reporting criteria: a qualifying commercial vehicle, plus a death, an injury treated away from the scene, or a vehicle towed away. Those criteria also cover qualifying buses and placarded hazardous material vehicles, and this analysis is filtered to truck-involved records only. A truck crash meeting none of the outcome criteria is absent from these counts, as is any qualifying crash a state agency did not report.
According to Truck and Bus Crashes Reportable to FMCSA, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, as of September 2026.
A number in a table is not a case. What these counts tell me is which commercial trucks move through these counties and what kinds of companies operate them. That is work I can do before I have read a page of anybody's file. A crash report usually names the carrier and the vehicle. Everything else in the investigation starts from those two facts.
The truck accident practice page covers how a commercial truck case differs from a car case in North Carolina.
What kinds of trucks were in these crashes?
The mix differs by county. Tractor-trailers appear most often in Alamance and Orange counties, while single-unit trucks, dump bodies and logging bodies appear far more often in Chatham County.
Across all four counties, 176 of the 1,292 individual truck records carried a recorded weight rating of 10,001 to 26,000 pounds and the remaining 1,116 were rated above 26,000 pounds.
| County | Tractor or semi-trailer involved | Single-unit truck involved | Dump body involved | Logging body involved |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alamance (468 crashes) | 195 | 128 | 46 | 15 |
| Orange (464 crashes) | 201 | 123 | 29 | 6 |
| Chatham (245 crashes) | 84 | 105 | 49 | 21 |
| Caswell (47 crashes) | 12 | 17 | 8 | 8 |
Exception: Cargo body type describes the body fitted to the truck. It does not establish what the truck was carrying at the time, who owned it, what job it was working, or whether it was being operated safely.
According to 14B NCAC 07C .0101, North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings, as of September 2026.
The records show a different mix of trucks in Chatham County. That is a statement about the crashes and not about the roads. What decides which rulebook reaches a carrier operating only inside North Carolina is a set of triggers rather than one number. Weight is one trigger. It is measured by rating or by actual load and the greater figure governs. Passenger capacity and placarded hazardous cargo are separate triggers. A dump truck on a local job and a tractor-trailer running to another state are not the same case even when the crash looks the same.
The Chatham County practice page covers where that county's traffic runs and how a case files there.
How many crashes involved a trucking company based outside North Carolina?
At least one carrier headquartered outside North Carolina appeared in 606 of the 1,224 reported crashes. The share is just over half in Alamance and Orange counties and roughly a quarter in Chatham County.
- Alamance County: at least one carrier headquartered outside North Carolina appeared in 256 of 468 reported truck crashes.
- Orange County: at least one carrier headquartered outside North Carolina appeared in 258 of 464 reported truck crashes.
- Chatham County: at least one carrier headquartered outside North Carolina appeared in 67 of 245 reported truck crashes, the lowest share of the four counties.
- Caswell County: at least one carrier headquartered outside North Carolina appeared in 25 of 47 reported truck crashes.
- A separate field points the same way. A carrier not registered as an interstate operator appeared in 84 of Chatham County's 245 crashes, against 103 of 468 in Alamance County and 92 of 464 in Orange County.
Exception: Carrier domicile records the headquarters location of the motor carrier. It does not record where the driver lives, where the truck is plated, or which company was responsible for the collision.
According to the Crash Statistics glossary, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, as of September 2026.
People hear that a trucking company is based in another state and assume that makes a claim harder to bring. The record does not say that. A domicile field says where a company keeps its headquarters and nothing else. Whether a claim is harder turns on who controlled the truck and what the lease between the parties said. A crash report does not settle either one.
What do these records not show?
These records report crash involvement rather than fault. Several fields in the North Carolina extract also carry no usable information, and the most recent year of counts is still provisional.
- Fault is not recorded. Federal preventability determinations are made through a separate program, and the agency states that they do not establish legal liability, fault, or negligence by any party.
- Cause is not recorded. The citation field reads Unknown or is blank on all 1,292 truck records in this selection, so no rate of citations, violations or driver error can be calculated from it.
- The city field is not a municipal boundary. All 47 Caswell County crashes are assigned to Yanceyville and 302 of Orange County's 464 to Hillsborough, which is consistent with a nearest-place or county-seat default rather than town limits.
- Recorded conditions do not explain a collision. Daylight was recorded in 883 of the 1,224 crashes and no adverse weather in 1,054, with the weather field blank in 42.
- As of September 2026, crash year 2025 remains provisional. FMCSA states that CY 2025 crash data is still being reported and separately describes its crash data as preliminary for 22 months, so counts for recent years can move.
Exception: These counts carry no measure of exposure. The file records crashes and not traffic volume or miles traveled, so a county with more reported crashes is not shown here to be more dangerous per trip or per mile.
According to the Crash Preventability Determination Program notice, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, as of September 2026.
The file carries no traffic counts. I will not tell you that one road or one county is the dangerous one. A page that ranks a road without those counts is stating something it cannot know. What these records do instead is narrow the questions. When a truck is involved, I want to know who the carrier is and where it is based before anything else happens. Both of those start with the report the officer wrote.
If a truck was involved in your crash
These records are a starting point and not an answer about anybody's case. What matters in a particular crash is who operated the truck and what the company preserved afterward. Those questions have deadlines attached to them.
You need to put a truck case in front of an attorney early enough that the records still exist. Call my office in Graham at 336-221-8900 or use the form at juliandoby.com/contact.
