To help teens understand how to safely navigate the roads with large trucks and buses, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) and Amazon.com held safe driving demonstrations for youth safety leaders at the National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS) Teen Safe Driving Summit, in Alexandria, Virginia, on Oct. 18-19, 2015, as part of CVSA’s Operation Safe Driver Week (Oct. 18-24).
NOYS’s Teen Safe Driving Summit gathers youth safety leaders from around the country to teach them how to engage their peers, parents, community members, and policymakers in education and awareness about safe driving. The event is created by and hosted for inspired youth who want to be catalysts for positive change.
“CVSA is proud to be involved with the National Organizations for Youth Safety’s Teen Safe Driving Summit,” said CVSA Acting Executive Director Collin Mooney. “CVSA’s goal is to reduce the number of deaths and injuries involving commercial motor vehicles and private passenger vehicles. This summit is a perfect opportunity for us to continue to further our commitment of educating teens about safe driving practices around large trucks and buses.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2011, approximately 2,650 teens in the United States age 16-19 were killed and almost 292,000 were treated in emergency departments for injuries suffered in motor-vehicle crashes.
While there is no substitute for on-the-road driving experience, there are steps that can be taken to reduce teens’ risks behind the wheel. Knowing the facts and practicing safe-driving techniques is very important for young drivers, especially when it comes to driving around large trucks and buses. At the Teen Safe Driving Summit, through education and safety demonstrations, CVSA offered youth safety leaders opportunities to:
- Participate in hands-on safety demonstrations.
- Sit inside the cab of a tractor-trailer to see the blind spots around a truck, also known as the “No Zones,” where the truck driver cannot see other vehicles.
- Drive on an impaired driving course to experience what it’s like to drive a vehicle when under the influence.
- Get driving tips about how to operate safely around large trucks and buses, the dangers of distracted driving, the differences and limitations of a large commercial motor vehicle versus a smaller private passenger vehicle, and much more.
This event was part of CVSA’s Operation Safe Driver (OSD) program, which was launched in 2007 to combat the number of deaths resulting from crashes involving large trucks, buses and private passenger vehicles. The program is conducted in partnership with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, state, provincial, territorial and local law enforcement, and industry.
Visit www.operationsafedriver.org to learn more about CVSA’s Operation Safe Driver program.