Operation Safe Trucking: Police ride along with truckers to catch distracted driving this week
Officers with the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) are going to emphasize a new initiative called Operation Safe Trucking that helps them to catch distracted drivers.
#OperationSafeTrucking kicks off today with the goal of reducing CMV collisions and saving lives. 84 lives have been lost this year alone as a result of CMV collisions and 155 lives were lost in 2015 through 2016. Road safety is the responsibility of all drivers. pic.twitter.com/hd40huoCt8
— OPP NorthWest Region (@OPP_NWR) December 11, 2017
The initiative is a part of OPP’s Commercial Motor Vehicle Mitigation Strategy and will target both commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles across the Ontario area.
Cops To Take Advantage Of Trucker’s Eye View To Catch Texting Drivers
Officers will be riding in two OPP semi trucks during the five-day blitz to give them a better vantage point to spot distracted, impaired and aggressive drivers, according to CBC.
Officers will be on the lookout for motorists that are speeding or following too closely.
OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said, “We are not going to be pulling them over in the truck. We have other cars that are in the area and as soon as we see a violator, we will call them up and they will make themselves available, in position within seconds to conduct a traffic stop.”
Operation safe trucking – Riding shot gun in a transport truck https://t.co/VkIRdSk4M3
— Sgt Kerry Schmidt (@OPP_HSD) December 11, 2017
It is almost as if the officers inside the trucks are a secret eye that communicates with another officer on duty.
Thus far in 2017, OPP has responded to over 6,200 accidents that involve commercial vehicles. Of these accidents, there were 87 fatalities.
Brad Blair, OPP deputy commissioner said, “Driver inattention is just one of the number of primary causes and factors of transport truck collisions on OPP controlled roads.
Regardless of what the causes or factors are, our OPP data tells us that the driver of the transport truck is at fault in 65 percent of the 6,200 collisions.”
It is expected that the OPP transport trucks will be in the GTA and surrounding area this week.
“Every detachment will be doing something in their own respective area. We’ll evaluate how the program was working and how efficient it was and obviously we’ll hopefully continue this process across the province as we move forward,” Blair said.