WASHINGTON — The number of dangerous truck drivers on North American highways continues to fall, according to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance and its U.S. and Canadian partners.

The week-long Operation Safe Driver campaign — conducted by the CVSA, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and Transport Canada across North America in October — included 4,321 law enforcement personnel at 1,332 localities in 31 states and Canadian provinces.

The numbers show a decrease of dangerous drivers on the road. In the 2008 blitz, 32,708 commercial vehicle roadside inspections were conducted, with 22.9 percent of Level 1 inspections resulting in the vehicles being placed out of service and 5.3 percent resulting in the driver being placed out of service. This compares to nearly 12,000 less inspections in 2007 (20,523), which resulted in a driver OOS rate of 10.2 percent.

"We know there are a small portion of high-risk drivers causing most of the crashes related to large trucks and buses," said CVSA Executive Director Stephen F. Campbell. "Operation Safe Driver focuses our enforcement resources on these high-risk operators, while at the same time offering educational tools to the motoring public at large on how to drive more safely around trucks and buses."

According to crash data analyzed by FMCSA, 88 percent of crashes involving large trucks cite driver behaviors — whether it was the car, truck or bus — were cited as a factor in the crash.

Statistics show, however, that an overwhelming percentage of truck-car crashes are the fault on the passenger car operator.

The Operation Safe Driver campaign was created last year to address this problem and take aggressive enforcement action on car, bus and truck drivers to prevent deaths.

Many educational and awareness events by government and industry were conducted in conjunction at different driver activities/events and population types. Activities included three international media events across the U.S., driver outreach events, No-Zone and Share the Road programs, distributing educational brochures and producing a podcast for CVSA’s In the Safety Lane. In addition, a number of states conducted their TACT (Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks) operation during the week.

There were 16,784 CMV Driver Traffic Enforcement Contacts, resulting in 6,143 citations and 3,247 warnings being issued. There were 11,151 Non-CMV Driver Traffic Enforcement Contacts, with 8,405 citations issues and 1,808 warnings.

In addition, 42 targeted Compliance Reviews on truck and motorcoach operations were conducted by FMCSA personnel on motor carriers employing the "worst of the worst" commercial drivers: Nine carriers (or 21.4 percent of the total reviews) received a Conditional Safety Rating. (The national average of carriers rated Conditional in 2007 was 26.7 percent). Four carriers (or 9.5 percent of the total reviews) receiving an Unsatisfactory Safety Rating. (The national average of carriers rated unsatisfactory in 2007 was 5.5 percent.)