OOIDA President Jim Johnston took part in the launch of a campaign to encourage the use of seat belts by professional truckers, urging them to set an example for the rest of motorists.
Johnston, along with dignitaries such as Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Administrator Annette Sandberg, met in Atlanta Dec. 9 to get the campaign into gear. Secretary Mineta 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.
Speaking on behalf of the country’s small-business truckers, Johnston said, “Consider that so far this year, approximately 450 military personnel have died in Iraq during wartime conditions. 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.”
