The Operation Safe Driver Week, an annual campaign held by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, is to be held this year in mid-July. Both passenger vehicle and commercial motor vehicle drivers in New York and across the U.S. (across all of North America, in fact) will be affected.
Law enforcement will be on the lookout for drivers who call or text, are intoxicated, drive aggressively, ignore traffic control devices, make improper lane changes and not buckle up, among other signs of unsafe driving. The main focus, though, will be on speeding.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that speeding drivers contributed to 94% of all traffic crashes in 2015. In 2017, speeding contributed to 9,717 traffic fatalities, 26% of the total for that year. Speeding has factored in more than a fourth of car crash deaths since 2008, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Highway Loss Data Institute.
Drivers who are caught will be issued a warning or citation. In 2018, the Operation Safe Driver Week led to 113,331 drivers being stopped. Police issued 57,405 citations and 87,907 warnings. Of those citations, 16,909 were issued to speeding passenger vehicle drivers and 1,908 to speeding CMV drivers.
It has been shown that ticketing campaigns do reduce the number of motor vehicle crashes. However, there will always be those who feel they can speed as long as police are not around. Those who are injured at the hands of a speeding driver may want to pursue a claim against that driver’s auto insurance company, but they may not want to do so without having the help of an attorney.