Operation Safe Driver Week Kicks Off Oct. 19
Law enforcement agencies across North America beginning Oct. 19 will conduct heightened traffic safety enforcement and education.
Their focus will be on drivers, including watching for unsafe behavior near and around heavy trucks.
On Oct. 20, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, Colorado State Patrol and sponsors FedEx and the Colorado Motor Carriers Association will hold the kickoff event in Denver to launch Operation Safe Driver Week, which runs through Oct. 25.
While Roadcheck, a 72-hour campaign typically conducted each June, concentrates on roadside truck and bus inspections, Operation Safe Driver targets at driver behavior, CVSA Executive Director Stephen Keppler said.
“The focus is not just on truck and bus drivers, but also on car drivers operating unsafely around trucks,” Keppler said.
CVSA and its partners launched the annual campaign in October 2007 to combat the number of deaths resulting from crashes involving large trucks, buses and passenger vehicles.
Last year, 6,174 law enforcement officers at 1,868 locations throughout the United States and Canada made more than 74,000 traffic stops during Operation Safe Driver, nearly triple the amount made the previous year, CVSA said.
Just over 29,000 of the traffic stops were made for commercial motor vehicles.
The three most common stops were for speeding, failure to wear seat belts and failure to obey traffic control devices.
In 2013, there was a decline in the percentage of car and truck driver citations issued for speeding and failure to wear seat belts, CVSA said.
The event is designed to reduce the nearly 4,000 deaths 100,000 injuries that occur annually in large-truck and bus crashes on U.S. roadways, according to CVSA.
Keppler said that this year, for example, law enforcement agencies in one geographical region of the United States are conducting coordinated distracted driving enforcement details. In another state, officers will ride in trucks to look for unsafe auto driver behaviors such as darting in front of trucks and making risky lane changes.
