Operation Safe Driver Week to return with speeding focus

Speeding will once again secure a special focus during the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA’s) Operation Safe Driver Week, scheduled to run across North America July 10-16.

Canadian officers pulled over 1,828 commercial drivers during the enforcement and education blitz that shared the same focus last July, issuing 593 citations and 136 warnings. Speed-related offences accounted for 289 of the commercial citations, followed by failing to wear a seat belt (160), and texting or using a handheld phone (83). Speed-related offences generated 35 warnings.

distracted drivers
(Photo: istock)

But officers also pulled over 7,759 passenger vehicles in Canada, issuing 3,427 citations and 139 warnings to them. Speed-related issues led to 2,861 of those violations and 82 of the warnings.

Officers in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. stopped 46,058 passenger and commercial vehicles during the 2021 event.

American speed-related fatalities rose 17% in 2020, a year in which the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recorded the highest number of traffic fatalities since 2007. Even though the number of crashes and traffic injuries declined, the number of fatal crashes was up 6.8%. 

“The rising fatalities on our roadways are a national crisis. We cannot and must not accept these deaths as inevitable,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance established Operation Safe Drive Week to address an array of traffic education and enforcement strategies. 

“This safe driving initiative and campaign focuses specifically on 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,” said CVSA president John Broers, a captain with the South Dakota Highway Patrol. “This focus on drivers’ behaviors is our effort to identify and educate drivers who are operating dangerously on our roadways, with the goal of preventing crashes from occurring.”


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