Operation Safe Driver Week 2: Not Wearing a Seatbelt | Semi Truck Repair

Without knowing the actual statistics, but from my own personal experience, I can tell you I’ve seen many a person not wearing a seatbelt. Granted these were the drivers of passenger vehicles, but I’m not naive to think it doesn’t happen in commercial motor vehicles as well.

The reasons are too numerous to count: I’m a safe driver; I’m not going that far; I don’t travel that fast; There isn’t that much traffic, etc, etc, on and on.

Since not wearing a seatbelt is one of the top 5 most common violations during Operation Safe Driver Week, and it’s YOUR fleet and YOUR CVSA score that will suffer; and there is truly no hard and fast and fast way to “control” this, we don’t have too many tips to offer you on this one.

But the penalty IS high – only 3 points less than reckless driving if that tells you the seriousness of it.

And on top of that, it’s a three year penalty. So for the first year, it’s 21 points on your BASIC score, the second year 14, and the third year 7 before it finally falls off.

If you can check your drivers as they are coming in and out of the yard – that’s a start. But depending on the size of your fleet, the size of your staff, and the peak times your trucks are hitting the yard, this may not always be possible. Hitting them with fines that come out of their own paycheck is also a good deterrent. (But then you’ve got to catch them to do that!)

What are some of your tactics to getting your drivers to buckle up?