| Truck Safety Suggestion Box |
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The Oregon Department of Transportation has long employed a number of strategies to enhance truck safety, but now it’s reaching out more than ever before to engage everyone and rally new ideas. It’s conducting brainstorming sessions and surveys, as well as opening this online Safety Suggestion Box.
Got an idea how to reduce truck crashes, particularly truck-at-fault crashes? We'd love to hear it.
Open the Suggestion Box Form, type in your ideas, and hit the Submit button to send the form to Motor Carrier Transportation Division Safety Program Manager David McKane. Be sure to include your name and e-mail address if you want a safety manager to contact you.
To report some kind of truck safety problem you witnessed while traveling in Oregon, please call 800-248-6782 or go online and submit a report to the Oregon Truck Safety Hotline.
We appreciate your help. Together we can make a difference enhancing highway safety in Oregon.
Example of comments received so far:
April 23
"Instead of OHP hiding in the weeds along highways on long straight sections looking to nab speeders, how about OHP observing the most dangerous sections of our highways, the merging area of the on and off ramps. The merging areas are where automobiles constantly cut-off large trucks at the last moment to make their exit. Perhaps photo-ticketing of these merging suicidal maniacs would reduce truck-auto conflicts. Perhaps make it a ticketable offense to jam your vehicle in to the right lane with mere feet to spare prior to exiting a throughway. This scenario is so common in my daily route on I-5 from Eugene, through Portland and on up through Seattle. The worst part is mothers with children in their vehicles doing this in front of my 80,000 lb. truck. If they only knew the danger they expose their children to."
May 2
"I have not looked for a few years, but if there is not a chapter in the driver's manual for car drivers there should be. Let's catch them young explaining the need to watch out for the truckers. Much like the motorcycle chapter educated us of the special things to watch out for."
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| 2007-09 Safety Action Plan to Reduce Truck-at-Fault Crashes |
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Truck crashes and truck-at-fault crashes have been steadily increasing in recent years. While total truck miles traveled increased 8% from 2001 through 2006, the truck crash rate increased 23% and the truck-at-fault crash rate increased 22%. In 2006, there were 0.394 truck-at-fault crashes per million miles traveled in Oregon.
In late-2007, the Oregon Department of Transportation, Motor Carrier Transportation Division, developed a Safety Action Plan to raise awareness and educate everyone about the current safety problem and the various ways to address it. In the next two years, Oregon will assess the problem and closely monitor crashes, plan ahead in order to direct efforts most effectively, focus on the driver as the root cause of most crashes, rally the partners who can assist, help enforcement officers with the tools they need to efficiently do their job, get creative and try new approaches, listen up for ideas and suggestions, encourage the innovators who are identifying problems and solutions, and work to educate the public and the industry.
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