TUCSON, Ariz. -- Each day more than 133,900 vehicles travel Interstate 10 through Tucson. With so many vehicles on the highways and with summer traffic increasing, it's a good time to learn to share the road safely with large trucks.
That's why the Arizona Motor Truck Association, the Governor's Office of Highway Safety, American Trucking Associations and Mack Trucks visited Tucson today - bringing the Share the Road Safely program to area motorists. This program addresses the fact most drivers were never taught how to drive safely around tractor-trailers, inadvertently initiating 75 percent of all truck-related car fatalities.
Featured at today's event were professional truck drivers Ina Daly of Con-Way Western Express, Tolleson, Ariz. and Ruben Armendariz of ABF Freight System, Inc., Albuquerque, N.M. Duplicating a highway scenario with cars and trucks, they demonstrated to local media the blind spots around tractor-trailers where cars "disappear" from a truck driver's view - information most motorists have never been taught.
Daly and Armendariz consider the highways their workplace and strive to make them safer for all drivers. Daly has a 20-year driving record with more than 1.5 million accident-free miles behind the wheel. She is a member of American Trucking Associations' 2001 America's Road Team, a select group of truck drivers who present safety information to the public and the media. Armendariz, a member of the 2003 America's Road Team, has been a professional driver for 25 years, accumulating 2.5 million accident-free miles.
Following the safety demonstration at Horizon Moving Systems in Tucson, reporters and photographers were given tractor-trailer rides on I-10 for a new perspective. Daly and Armendariz gave tips on safe merging and stopping distances and explained some of the differences between how cars and large trucks operate.
The drivers appeared today as part of the "Share the Road" program, designed to teach the public specific skills they need to know to drive safely around trucks and large commercial vehicles. This safety program reaches millions of U.S. households annually with its lifesaving messages, including thousands in Arizona through the "Share the Road/No Zone" program.
Trucking plays an important role in the Arizona economy. The trucking industry employs more than 123,000 people in Arizona and 87 percent of all Arizona communities are served exclusively by truck. Each day, trucks move 587,000 tons in and out of the state of Arizona, according to Karen Rasmussen, president of the Arizona Motor Transport Association.
Arizona recorded 1,430 vehicles involved in fatal crashes in 2001; trucks made up only 79 of them. If these numbers follow national statistics, nearly 75 percent of the truck-related accidents were attributed to the driver of the car and at least 35 percent of them occurred in the blind spots. These numbers indicate the urgent need to educate car drivers about how to drive safely around trucks.
On a national level, the trucking industry is proud of its achievements in highway safety. Large truck-related fatalities have dropped 34 percent during the past 10 years, while miles driven have increased by 42 percent. Truck-related car fatalities have dropped for the fourth year in a row and the fatal crash rate is the lowest since the U.S. Department of Transportation began keeping large truck safety records in 1975.
To reduce accidents, AMTA, GOHS, ATA and Mack offered these safety guidelines to motorists:
Although the national program has been in effect for 16 years, it is in its inaugural year in Arizona. In Arizona the program is funded through a grant from the Governor's Office of Highway Safety.
To learn more please see:
American Trucking Associations
Mack Trucks, Inc.
Arizona Motor Transport Association
Governor's Office of Highway Safety
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