Many young drivers ages 16 to 24 years
old do not recognize that trucks and
cars differ significantly in their
handling characteristics, and this can
lead to truck crashes. For this reason,
Teens and Trucks was developed by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance
(CVSA) in collaboration with other
organizations and support from the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration
(FMCSA).

Many motorists falsely assume that
truckers can see the road better because
they sit twice as high as the driver of a
car. However, truckers still have
serious blind spots or NO-ZONES into
which a car can disappear from view. (See diagram). Motorists lingering
in the NO-ZONES hamper the trucker’s
ability to take evasive action to avoid a
dangerous situation. An excellent rule of
thumb for motorists sharing the road with
a tractor-trailer is, “if you can’t see the
truck driver in his side view mirror, he
can’t see you.”

Operation Safe Driver is a CVSA (Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance) program aimed at reducing deaths and injuries involving large trucks, buses and cars due to unsafe driver behaviors . The Alliance intends to accomplish this goal by educating both commercial motor vehicle drivers and youth drivers about ways to share the roads safely.

In addition, there is an annual one-week enforcement and educational blitz held, called Operation Safe Driver Week, held every October to spotlight unsafe driving behaviors by both commercial motor vehicle drivers and car drivers in an effort to combat the number of deaths and injuries from crashes.