f e a t u r e s t o r y
Ten States Crack Down
Federal funding supports education, enforcement efforts aimed at cutting fatal truck-related accidents.
Evan Lockridge
Contributing EditorTen states are using extra money from a little-known federal program to crack down on lawbreaking truckers and increase public education about truck safety.
The Top 10 program was set up two years ago by the Federal Highway Administration to try to reduce the number of fatal traffic accidents involving commercial trucks. Federal accident reporting data shows 10 states account for 49% of these accidents, so the program focused on those states. Since the program’s inception, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas have received a total of $1 million annually.
In North Carolina, for example, the money is being used for three purposes: helping to determine where, when and why trucks are involved in fatal accidents; enforcement; and public education on sharing the road with trucks.
It’s the program’s effect on this latter purpose that may have the most long-term benefit. Tim Phillips, North Carolina’s state director for the Office of Motor Carriers, says he was astounded that until the Top 10 program started, there was no information being provided to high-school drivers education classes in North Carolina about sharing the road with commercial vehicles.
“We’ve gotten some information in a lot of the drivers education programs about commercial vehicles, plus we’ve had officials with the Department of Motor Vehicles as well as members of the state trucking association go out and do presentations for the drivers education classes,” he says.
However, the state is not shying away from the enforcement aspect. Phillips says the program has also helped equip 50 DMV patrol officers with traffic radar and trained them for traffic enforcement on commercial vehicles, with a particular emphasis along the state’s high accident corridors. This is in addition to state highway patrol officers who have already been enforcing truck laws, as well as local police who have received training under Top 10 about enforcing truck regs.
In California, most of this grant money is being used to identify high-accident corridors and increase enforcement in those areas; to step up the visibility of the “No-Zone” campaign, which warns the public about truck blind spots; and to get questions included in the state driving exam about sharing the road with commercial vehicles. Similar efforts are being made in other states, such as Florida.
The infusion of federal money from Top 10 also has allowed the California Highway Patrol to step up its commercial vehicle enforcement efforts. While it is primarily targeting drivers for moving violations such as speeding, it is conducting “strike forces” at scales during off-duty hours to check driver logbooks, medical certificates and CDLs.
There is some doubt in the golden and sunshine states that federal funding for this program will continue much longer. Glenn Beck, director for the Northern California Div. of the Office of Motor Carriers, says this grant is “seed money to get programs started. Hopefully the state will pick them up, if they prove successful, and run with them.”
Since the program was started two years ago, there have been varying degrees of success in reducing fatal truck-related accidents. North Carolina has yet to show a real drop, while California has only shown a small drop between 1995 and 1997. In contrast, figures from Florida’s Department of Motor Vehicles show fatal crashes involving commercial vehicles (including buses) fell 30.4% from 1995 to 1997. But officials say the numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“North Carolina is a state that is growing tremendously,” Phillips says. “Even if you can’t show a drastic reduction from this year to the next in the number of fatalities, when you understand how much the truck traffic and general traffic is increasing out there, you are doing good just to stay where you are at.”