Latest news with #OperationSafeDriver
CTV News
6 days ago
- CTV News
Essex County OPP preparing for week-long safe driving campaign for trucks
Members of the Essex County Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) are preparing for a week-long campaign. Essex County OPP will be taking part in the annual province-wide traffic safety initiative called 'Operation Safe Driver'. The campaign will run from Sunday, July 13 until Saturday, July 19. In conjunction with the Ministry of Transportation, Essex County OPP officers will be patrolling local roadways to promote safe driving practices that impact commercial motor vehicle (CMV) traffic, such as trucks. Police will be patrolling to look for infractions such as speeding, distracted driving, weight restrictions, pre-trip inspections, among more. OPP are warning those who operate a CMV or own a CMV being operated on the roadways to ensure the drivers are following all laws related to Ontario highways to keep the roadways safe and to avoid potential fines. Residents and travellers can expect to see an increased police presence on the roadways during this campaign. — Meagan Delaurier/AM800 News
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
How to improve safety during Distracted Driving Awareness Month
Chris Hayes, Risk Control Assistant Vice President for Workers' Compensation and Transportation for Travelers Insurance, sat down with FreightWaves' Timothy Dooner on the April 21st episode of What the Truck?!? to discuss the Distracted Driver Awareness month as well as the risks and effects of distracted driving. Distracted driving remains a prevalent safety issue, with many incidents each year caused by cell phones and other distractions. 'In bumper-to-bumper traffic the other day, I looked at the car next to me and thought, 'that's a good episode of that TV show,' and then I realized that this person was watching television on their phone while driving in traffic,' Hayes said. 'If I can recognize the show from another car, that just shows how distracting that behavior really is.' Ultimately, safety is in the hands of every driver. Until all cars are self-driving, carriers will still need drivers. Even with technology like autonomous trucks, someone will need to be present in those trucks for the foreseeable future. 'Statistic after statistic shows that drivers are the cause of roughly ninety-five percent of accidents,' Hayes said. More often than not, Hayes says, it's the passenger vehicle that's the primary cause of the accident when it comes to light vehicle/heavy vehicle collisions. 'Either way, it's still people that typically make these things happen,' he said. When it comes to safety, distracted driving compounds with every other thing that a driver is doing. 'Being distracted while you're in your sleeper doesn't matter, of course, but when you're on a crowded highway going sixty miles an hour and it's raining, every one of those factors makes it more dangerous,' Hayes said. Distraction erodes all of those skills that a driver should have, according to Hayes. 'The most important thing is to be able to see where you're going and maintain the right space between you and the vehicles around you,' he said. Every year, the CVSA hosts a program called Operation Safe Driver, which involves focused enforcement over the course of a week in July. 'Many drivers may not appreciate dealing with the extra enforcement, but it's an important cause and encourages safe driving behaviors,' Hayes said. Last year, between July 7th and July 13th, the CVSA pulled over more than 11,000 vehicles, including both commercial and passenger vehicles. The most common infraction for commercial drivers was speeding. 'Cutting down on speeding is absolutely the key to maintaining safe roads,' Hayes said. 'Close to 12,000 people die in speeding-related crashes out of the 40,000 who die on the road every year.' * Speed affects nearly every aspect of road safety – necessary following distance, a driver's ability to react in time, and the severity of an impact. 'Speed is everything, especially when you're driving a commercial vehicle,' Hayes said. Surprisingly, failure to wear a seatbelt was the second highest infraction found during 2024's Operation Safe Driver. 'A lot of people think that wearing a seatbelt only affects them and their safety,' Hayes said. 'If you're in a collision, though, the thing that keeps that collision from getting much worse is your natural reaction to grab the steering wheel and hit the brakes to get control of your vehicle, which you can't do if you get bounced into your passenger seat,' he said. 'If you've seen videos of crashes from interior cameras, you know that a driver without a seatbelt never stays in that seat,' Hayes said. 'Wearing a seatbelt is not just about your safety. It also can keep other people in your vicinity safer in the event of an accident because you can be in a better position to keep your vehicle straight, steady, and stopped.' It's also worth noting that not wearing a seatbelt is actually a bigger violation than speeding in many states. For Distracted Driving Awareness Month, Travelers wants to remind all drivers that their main job on the road is to get their vehicles to their destination safely. 'Any secondary task you have to do is well below that in importance,' Hayes said. It's vital that office staff participate in avoiding distractions too, says Hayes, because many carriers are far too apt to call drivers while on the road. 'There are many other ways to communicate safely with drivers now,' Hayes said. 'When I started in trucking, drivers would call dispatch twice a day, and somehow the economy still kept turning.' There is nothing more important than the driver's ability to stay focused on the task of driving, because otherwise too many people can be hurt. 'As an industry, we have to pull out of the sense that we need to be connected at all times,' Hayes said. From the perspective of safety professionals, according to Hayes, there is still a lot of work to be done. 'I've been trying to find ways to make telematics improve safety since 2009, and I'm still working at it,' Hayes said. For many carriers, trying to examine and respond to every single alert of a safety issue is impractical. In speaking with one customer, Hayes learned that their fleet received 3,000 alerts every morning between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. 'In a situation like that, it's difficult to know which alerts to look at,' Hayes said. Some carriers, he says, are even concerned that they may be in more trouble if they neglected to address something crucial. 'What we're helping our customers do is focus on something we call 'metrics that matter,'' Hayes said. 'With the wealth of data you get from cameras, telematics, engines and GPS, you can focus on which stats actually make the most impact in safety for you right now, and you can turn that into methods for coaching your drivers,' he said. Instead of simply reprimanding a driver for an individual incident, for instance, carriers can show them how they compare to other drivers and examine the patterns of what they do right and wrong. 'Don't forget to work with your telematics provider,' Hayes said. 'You don't want to report every minute for every driver. What would be better is to see on a regular basis who is performing and who is not so you can provide a straightforward scorecard and help drivers understand where they are.' Knowing who to coach and provide feedback to, Hayes says, is a key factor for fleets to improve their overall safety. 'It can be a huge help and a tremendous motivating factor to know that your speed is too high and that you have harsher usage of the brakes than anyone else in the fleet,' Hayes said. 'For the most part, everyone is out there trying to do a good job every day, but we just need information in order to improve sometimes,' Hayes said. Click here to learn more about Travelers Risk Control. *Source: The post How to improve safety during Distracted Driving Awareness Month appeared first on FreightWaves.
