Alberta Transportation safety focus for June: Commercial Vehicle Safety

The Alberta Transportation traffic safety focus for the month of June is Commercial Vehicle Safety.

In a release, the province said commercial vehicles are vital to keeping goods and services moving around the province.

“These vehicles are much larger and heavier than passenger vehicles and other drivers may feel intimidated by them, but can take precautions to share the road safely. Drivers should be aware that commercial vehicles have large blind spots, require a wider turning radius, and take longer to stop than smaller vehicles. Always be sure to give commercial vehicles enough room on the road,” Alberta Transportation stated.

Get up to speed about commercial vehicles:
• Truck-tractors made up 2.2 per cent of the total vehicles involved in casualty collisions, but 11.1 per cent of the vehicles in fatal crashes (2017).
• 58 per cent of drivers of other vehicles involved in fatal collisions with truck-tractors and 42.8 per cent in injury collisions committed a driving error. The most common errors were following too closely, being left of centre, or violating a stop sign (2013 – 2017).
• The most common driving errors on the part of the truck-tractor driver in casualty collisions were running off the road and following too closely (2013 -2017).
• Truck-tractor drivers are more likely than other drivers in casualty collisions to be fatigued or asleep at the time of the collision (2013 – 2017).
• In 2019, Commercial Vehicle Enforcement completed 27,001 commercial vehicle and/or driver inspections.