Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta Dec. 9 asked the country’s 11 million truck drivers to buckle up while announcing a program involving the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and other groups to educate the nearly half of CDL holders who don’t use seat belts.

The campaign was prompted by a new federal study that found only 48 percent of all commercial vehicle drivers wear safety belts. A similar study by OOIDA found about 50 percent of drivers don’t buckle up. In comparison, 79 percent of passenger vehicle drivers wear seat belts.

Mineta and dignitaries including OOIDA President Jim Johnston and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Administrator Annette Sandberg met in Atlanta to get the campaign into gear.

“Consider that so far this year, approximately 450 military personnel have died in Iraq during wartime conditions,” Johnston said. “During a comparable period of time, using Department of Labor statistics for 2002, 808 truck drivers have died on the job – 81 percent in highway-related accidents. At least some of these fatalities occur as a result of ejection from the vehicle at the time of the accident or collision.”

Meanwhile, government statistics show that last year, more than half of the 588 commercial drivers killed in crashes were not wearing seat belts. And, of the 171 drivers thrown from their trucks, almost 80 percent were not wearing seat belts.

“The thought I would really like to share with professional truckers is that while I really don’t know how many of these fatalities would have been prevented with the use of safety belts, even if it was only one, wouldn’t it be worth the minor inconvenience of buckling up?” Johnston said. “It certainly would be if that one tragedy avoided involved you. As professional drivers, you should set an example.

OOIDA, others ally for safety
In addition to the Transportation Department, the new seat-belt awareness partnership includes OOIDA, the American Trucking Association, the Motor Freight Carriers Association, the National Private Truck Council, and the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.

While the overall rate of seat-belt use among truckers was 48 percent, those hauling hazardous materials buckled up 67 percent of the time. The lowest percentage of seat-belted truckers was among the single-trailer dump truck drivers, at 26 percent.

Mineta said the government had set a goal to reduce truckers’ fatality rate by 2008 to 1.65 deaths for every 100 million miles of travel. That rate today is 2.1 deaths, and in 1996 it was 2.8.

The federal study examined 3,909 truck drivers in 12 states during 2002 and has an error rate of 1.4 percentage points. The study did not break down the rates by state.

"Some commercial drivers tell us they do not want to buckle up because they think the size of their rigs will keep them safe," Sandberg said. "The grim reality is that when it comes to saving lives, every one of us, especially truck drivers, needs to buckle up."