Operation Safe Driver Week: CVSA announces results of annual event

Greenbelt, MD — Law enforcement officials issued more than 57,000 citations and nearly 88,000 warnings during the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s annual Operation Safe Driver Week.

From July 15 to July 21, law enforcement officers throughout the United States and Canada were on the lookout for commercial and passenger vehicle drivers engaging in unsafe behaviors such as speeding, texting, following too closely and not wearing seat belts. More than 50,000 officers made contact with 113,331 drivers, CVSA states in a Sept. 19 press release.

The highest percentage of citations for both groups of drivers were for violations of state and local laws, accounting for 56.1 percent (6,008) of the 10,709 citations for commercial motor vehicle drivers and 46.1 percent (21,511) of the 46,696 citations for passenger vehicle drivers.

Speeding was a close second for the latter group, comprising 36.2 percent (16,909) of citations. By contrast, speeding accounted for 17.8 percent of the citations for CMV drivers (1,908 total).

Rounding out the top five violations for CMV drivers were failure to use a seat belt (10.9 percent), failure to obey a traffic control device (7 percent) and using a handheld phone (2.4 percent).

The other top five violations for passenger vehicle drivers were failure to use a seat belt (6.6 percent), inattentive and/or careless driving (3.5 percent), and failure to obey a traffic control device (1.6 percent).

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration participated once again by “directing federal safety investigators to focus on carriers with recent crash involvement and high percentiles in the driver-based Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC),” the release states.

FMCSA completed more than 100 compliance investigations and issued more than 100 citations for acute and critical violations, according to CVSA.

“During Operation Safe Driver Week, law enforcement officers throughout the United States and Canada aimed to reduce the number of crashes on our roadways through an effective mix of education and enforcement of highway safety,” Capt. Christopher Turner, CVSA president, said in the release. “By improving the driving behaviors of all drivers operating in an unsafe manner, either in or around commercial motor vehicles, we are working our way toward the goal of zero roadway deaths.”