What Happens Before a Crash: The Warning Signs Carriers Continue to Ignore Before Serious Accidents
July 1 2026, Updated 4:43 p.m. ET
Can a serious accident be predicted before it happens? For many carriers, the question still sounds theoretical. Yet transportation safety experts increasingly agree that most major crashes do not occur without warning. In fact, they are almost always preceded by a chain of warning signs that companies either fail to recognize or underestimate.
Today, this issue has become particularly significant for the U.S. transportation industry. Amid rising insurance costs, litigation expenses, and regulatory compliance requirements, the financial impact of a single serious accident can reach millions of dollars. According to the National Safety Council, 5,340 people were killed in crashes involving large trucks in the United States in 2024. Despite advances in telematics, monitoring technologies, and safety management systems, the industry continues to face the same challenge: many companies still address risk only after it has already resulted in serious consequences.
According to Yulia Shulpenkova, a safety management strategist and regulatory compliance specialist focused on FMCSA/DOT compliance, operational risk reduction, and measurable safety improvements in commercial transportation, and Head of Safety Systems Improvement at AD Freight Inc., many safety programs remain focused on analyzing incidents that have already occurred, including crashes, insurance claims, violations, and inspection results. While this approach helps explain what went wrong in the past, it does not necessarily prevent the next incident.
“Virtually every serious crash leaves a trail of warning signs long before the event itself. Companies that can identify these indicators early gain the opportunity to prevent accidents rather than simply analyze their consequences,” Shulpenkova says.
In most cases, growing risk is signaled not by major incidents but by recurring deviations that many companies consider insignificant. These may include hours-of-service violations, an increase in harsh braking events identified through telematics, customer complaints, declining documentation quality, missed inspections, or changes in driver behavior. Individually, none of these factors may appear critical. However, they often represent the earliest indicators of increasing operational risk.
According to Shulpenkova, one of the most common problems is that carriers evaluate these factors in isolation. Customer complaints are reviewed separately from telematics data, compliance metrics are analyzed independently from driver performance indicators, and internal audit findings are rarely compared with information from other data sources. As a result, management sees individual irregularities but fails to recognize the broader pattern.
As a consequence, many dangerous trends become apparent only after an accident has already occurred.
For large carriers operating across multiple states, this issue is especially important. Within large-scale operations, individual violations, complaints, or deviations are often viewed as unrelated events. Yet it is precisely within these seemingly minor details that risks capable of leading to serious incidents often emerge. As a result, an increasing number of companies are shifting from reacting to consequences toward identifying potential threats at an earlier stage.
Through years of work in transportation safety, Shulpenkova observed a pattern that frequently goes unnoticed: serious incidents are almost always preceded by early indicators of risk. This observation became the foundation of the Comprehensive Safety Excellence System (CSES), a methodology she developed based on the integrated analysis of operational data, behavioral factors, and regulatory compliance metrics. The approach is designed to identify potential threats before they result in accidents or regulatory violations.
Working with commercial fleets, Shulpenkova has focused not only on compliance with FMCSA and DOT requirements but also on building a safety culture that emphasizes the causes of risk rather than its consequences. This philosophy remains central to her work: preventing problems during their formative stages is significantly more effective and less costly than addressing the consequences of incidents after they occur.
According to Shulpenkova, the future of transportation safety will depend less on increasing the number of inspections and more on companies’ ability to analyze data and identify patterns before critical events occur. Organizations that learn to recognize early indicators of risk will be better positioned not only to reduce accident rates but also to strengthen operational resilience in an increasingly complex regulatory and economic environment.
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The professional community has recognized Shulpenkova’s contribution to advancing modern approaches to transportation safety and risk management. In 2026, she received the People Who Shape Tomorrow Award in recognition of her contributions to international transportation safety through CSES, a framework designed to advance safety standards through data-driven risk analytics and behavioral safety protocols. That same year, she joined the judging panel of UATech Venture Night Spring/Summer 2026, an international program that brings together experts in technology, innovation, and sustainable development. In addition to her practical work, Shulpenkova conducts research in transportation safety, with a particular focus on the relationship between behavioral factors, organizational culture, and operational risk.
Today, the ability to identify risks early is becoming one of the most important competitive advantages for transportation companies. While safety was once viewed primarily as a matter of regulatory compliance, it is increasingly regarded as a critical factor in business sustainability and effective decision-making.
Serious accidents rarely occur suddenly. In most cases, they are preceded by a sequence of events and warning signals that indicate the development of risk long before the incident itself. For modern carriers, the ability to recognize threats during their early stages and prevent their escalation is becoming just as important as responding to the consequences after the fact.
