Alberta’s traffic safety campaign in June to focus on differences between commercial and smaller passenger vehicles

The province of Alberta will be holding a traffic safety campaign in June to educating drivers about the differences between commercial vehicles and smaller passenger vehicles.

Occupants of a passenger vehicle are more likely to be killed or injured in a collision with a large commercial vehicle because of the differences in weight, stopping distance and rollover potential, the Government of Alberta’s Ministry of Transportation said in a statement issued on Friday.

Between 2011 and 2015, 447 people were killed and 9,422 were injured in collisions involving commercial vehicles in Alberta, the ministry reported. Of these, 235 people – or more than half – were killed and 3,042 people were injured in collisions with truck tractors.

“The safe operation of large commercial vehicles on Alberta highways is important to our economy and to the health and well-being of everyone using the highway network,” said the province’s Minister of Transportation, Brian Mason, in the statement. “Safety is a shared responsibility among all road users, and everyone needs to be cautious and aware when big trucks are travelling our highways.”

In conjunction with this month’s campaign, Road Check 2017, run by provincial commercial vehicle enforcement officers, will operate a series of commercial vehicle safety checks on Alberta roads and highways in June to heighten awareness of safety standards in the province, the ministry said in the release.

According to the statement, between 2011 and 2015, 2,647 truck tractors were involved in casualty collisions in Alberta. In 2015, tractor-trailers accounted for 2% of the total vehicles in casualty crashes, but 8.6% of vehicles in fatal crashes.

There are 25,717 National Safety Code carriers in Alberta operating 128,458 commercial vehicles.