GREENBELT, MD — Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA)-certified inspectors conducted 19,480 North American Standard Roadside Inspections on commercial drivers and vehicles during the 2015 Operation Safe Driver Week, a decreased compared to 24,184 the previous year.
Operation Safe Driver Week ran Oct. 18-24 at 706 locations across Canada and the United States. During that time, the top five warnings and citations issued to commercial vehicle (CMV) drivers were: size and weight, speeding, failure to use a seat belt while operating a CMV, failure to obey traffic control device and using a handheld phone.
The top five warnings and citations issued to non-CMV drivers were: speeding, failure to use a seat belt, failure to obey traffic control device, following too closely and improper lane change. The CVSA found that non-CMV drivers sped more than CMV drivers, 27.3 percent compared to 9.3 per cent.
Operation Safe Driver is a CVSA program aimed at decreasing the number of fatalities and injuries from crashes on our roadways caused by unsafe driving behaviors by both CMV drivers and passenger vehicle drivers. More than 30,000 people die on North American roadways each year. Many of these deaths are the direct result of unsafe and aggressive driving practices by both passenger and commercial vehicle drivers.
“Our mission is to make our roadways as safe as possible. We will continue to work toward that goal by ensuring drivers are operating safely in and around large trucks and buses,” said CVSA President Maj. Jay Thompson with Arkansas Highway Police.
Operation Safe Driver Week also included outreach, educational and awareness events at high schools, state capitals, state fairs, truck rodeos, sporting events and other locations.
Click HERE to see a chart of 2015 Operation Safe Driver Week traffic enforcement violations by CMV drivers and passenger-vehicle drivers.
CVSA launched Operation Safe Driver in 2007 in partnership with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and with support from industry and a number of transportation safety organizations to combat the number of deaths from crashes involving large trucks, buses and cars. It aims to improve the behavior of all drives operating in an unsafe manner through educational and enforcement strategies to reach individuals exhibiting high-risk behavior.