Ankeny, Iowa — The Iowa Department of Transportation’s Motor Vehicle Enforcement group tells us they will be participating in Operation Safe Driver Week July 11-17, an effort by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance to bring attention to motor carrier safety issues.
The DOT says this annual, one-week enforcement and educational blitz concentrates MVE’s efforts on detecting unsafe driving behaviors by both commercial motor vehicle drivers and other vehicle drivers operating around commercial motor vehicles in an effort to combat the number of deaths and injuries from crashes. This year’s event will focus on speeding.
They tell us the alliance selected speeding as its focus this year because despite a drop in roadway travel last year due to the pandemic, nationally, traffic fatalities increased. According to the National Safety Council’s preliminary estimates, the estimated rate of death on roads last year increased 24% over the previous 12-month period, despite miles driven dropping 13%. The increase in the rate of death is the highest estimated year-over-year jump the council has calculated in 96 years.
The alliance’s Operation Safe Driver Program was created to help to reduce the number of crashes involving commercial motor vehicles and passenger vehicles due to unsafe driving behaviors. Operation Safe Driver Week is sponsored by the alliance, in partnership with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and with support from the motor carrier industry and transportation safety organizations. They tell us the initiative aims to improve the behavior of all drivers operating in an unsafe manner – either in or around commercial motor vehicles – through educational and traffic enforcement strategies.
