Speeding violations on the rise, says safety alliance

Washington – Speeding violations accounted for a higher proportion of driving warnings and citations during the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance's 2012 Operation Safe Driver campaign than the year before, according to the alliance.

CVSA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration collected data between Oct. 14 and 20 from 1,245 preselected locations in the United States and Canada. Nearly 3,000 law enforcement officers pulled over about 35,000 commercial and passenger vehicles, CVSA states. Among the results (.pdf file):

• Speeding violations accounted for more than 70 percent of warnings, with nearly 20 percent issued to commercial motor vehicle drivers (a 7.1 percent increase from 2011) and 50.5 percent to passenger-vehicle drivers (a 9.8 percent increase from 2011).
• 8.8 percent of citations were for failing to use a safety belt and 2.8 percent of warnings to passenger-vehicles drivers were for improper lane changes.
• 9.9 percent of citations were for failing to use a safety belt and 4 percent of CMV driver warnings were for failing to obey traffic control devices.