CVSA: Operation Safe Driver Week begins
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA) Operation Safe Driver Week began on Sunday and runs from July 10-July 16, 2022. Operation Safe Driver Week is a seven-day safe-driving campaign aimed at reducing unsafe driver behaviors through educational and traffic enforcement strategies and interactions with law enforcement.
The Operation Safe Driver program:
- Targets unsafe driving behaviors by passenger vehicle drivers and commercial drivers
- Educates youth about safely sharing the roads with large trucks and buses
- Offers commercial driver educational and awareness programs to the motor carrier population
- Increases awareness to the general motoring public about safe operations around commercial motor vehicles
- Aims to improve commercial motor driver regulatory compliance
- Conducts passenger vehicle and commercial motor vehicle traffic enforcement initiatives
CVSA – in partnership with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), state, provincial and local law enforcement, and industry – launched the Operation Safe Driver campaign in 2007 to reduce the number of deaths and injuries resulting from crashes involving large trucks, buses and cars.
Why Target Driver Behaviors?
This program focuses specifically on drivers because drivers’ actions – whether it’s something a driver did, like speeding, or something they didn’t do, such as not paying attention to the driving task – are responsible for most crashes. In fact, drivers’ actions contribute to a staggering 94% of all traffic crashes.
Furthermore, last year, roadway fatalities increased 24% over the previous 12-month period, despite miles driven dropping 13%. With the decrease in the number of vehicles on our roadways last year due to the pandemic, we expected a decrease roadway fatalities; however, not only did the rate of roadway deaths increase, that increase is the highest estimated year-over-year jump the National Safety Council has calculated in 96 years. This is, simply put, unacceptable. And the members of CVSA will do everything they can to reverse that alarming trend. Operation Safe Driver Week is part of that commitment.
“People know CVSA as the organization comprised of law enforcement officers who inspect commercial motor vehicles and remove dangerous vehicles from our roadways; however, we do much more than that,” said CVSA President Capt. John Broers with the South Dakota Highway Patrol. “The goal of CVSA’s member jurisdictions is to reduce the number of crashes on our roadways. We know that many crashes are the result of unsafe driving behaviors and bad driving decisions. That’s why it’s so important for the Alliance to also focus on and invest in improving driver behaviors on our roadways. We want everyone to be safe when they’re traveling in their vehicle – whether that’s a truck driver or a passenger vehicle driver.”
For more information, visit www.roadcheck.org
Related content: