How many unsafe big-rig and commercial truck drivers can be found on the road in a week? According to a group of experts, over 10,000!
The Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Alliance is a nonprofit coalition of safety officials, law enforcement and trucking industry representatives in North America. Its goal is to make commercial trucking safer.
CVSA hosts a series of annual events designed to prevent some of the most common causes of serious truck crashes, including:
· Tired truckers
· Speeding truck drivers
During these events law enforcement officials encounter big-rig drivers via random roadside inspections and stops based on observing dangerous behaviors.
For example, CVSA’s annual “Brake Safety Week” calls for brake inspections of 18-wheelers. More than one out of every 10 commercial trucks inspected during the 2020 event had brakes so dangerous truckers were required to have them fixed before driving again. These are called out-of-service violations.
Tractor-Trailers with Dangerous Maintenance Issues
CVSA’s “International Roadside Inspection” event includes detailed inspections of tractor-trailers and commercial drivers. Last year in the United States more than 7,200 rigs received out-of-service violations for some sort of maintenance problem. The most frequent violations included those for:
· Dangerous truck brake systems
· Worn out truck tires
· Unsafely loaded or improperly secured truck cargo
Just over 2,300 truck drivers received out-of-service violations, with the most common dealing with the federal Hours of Service regulations. These rules are designed to keep tired truckers off the road and violations of them accounted for nearly one-third of all truck driver out-of-service violations.
Other leading serious truck driver violations were:
· Driving on a suspended commercial driver’s license
· Moving violation, such as using a cell phone manually while driving
· Having false driving logs
The third big truck safety event conducted by the CVSA is “Operation Safe Driver Week.” In 2021, this will be held July 11-17, with a focus on catching speeding truck drivers.
In announcing this year’s event, CVSA explained it is emphasizing speeding this year because last year, even with fewer drivers on the road due to the pandemic, the rate of fatal crashes increased an estimated 24% over 2019.
Truck Drivers Caught Speeding
During those seven days in July state and federal police offices will be monitoring the roadways for unsafe commercial truckers. In 2020, law enforcement issued citations and warnings to 10,736 over-the-road truckers for unsafe driving.
In a summary of the 2020 Operation Safe Driver Week results, the CVSA noted that federal rules forbid commercial truck drivers from using hand-held cell phones and that research shows truckers dialing a cell phone while behind the wheel are six times more likely to crash than those who are driving without that distraction.
Inattentive or speeding big-rig drivers are a threat to other drivers and their passengers. If you had a loved one die or was seriously injured in crash caused by a commercial truck, turn to a personal injury attorney to pursue your legal rights for just compensation.
The choice of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely on advertisements.
Authored by Gray Ritter Graham, posted in Blog July 12, 2021
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