Traffic Safety

This month's traffic safety focus is 
Commercial Vehicle Safety. 

Commercial vehicles play an important role in moving goods around the province and across its borders. These vehicles are larger and heavier than passenger vehicles, so other drivers and road users should exercise caution and patience when sharing the road with them. Commercial vehicles have large blind spots, take longer to stop than smaller vehicles, and require a wide turning radius. Make sure to give them plenty of room on the road.

Facts about commercial vehicles:

• In 2019, truck tractors made up 1.9 percent of the total vehicles involved in casualty collisions, but 13.4 percent of the vehicles in fatal collisions. 
• 59.4 percent of drivers of other vehicles involved in fatal collisions with truck tractors and 41.1 percent in injury collisions committed a driving error. The most common errors of these drivers were following too closely, being left of centre, or violating a stop sign (2015 - 2019). 
• The most common driving errors on the part of the truck tractor driver in casualty collisions were running off the road and following too closely (2015 -2019). 
• Truck-tractor drivers are more likely than other drivers in casualty collisions to be fatigued or asleep at the time of the collision (2015 - 2019). 
• In 2021, Sheriff Highway Patrol completed 19,340 commercial vehicle and/or driver inspections. 

    For more information or tools visit:

• Alberta Transportation
• Collision Statistics
• 511Alberta.

Office of Traffic Safety PH: 780-427-8901 Email: officeoftrafficsafety@gov.ab.ca

2019 Collision Statistics

Highlights:

• In total, there were 132,072 collisions reported in 2019. This included 215 fatal collisions, 11,738 non-fatal injury collisions, and 120,119 property damage only collisions.
• 233 people were killed and 15,364 were injured in collisions in 2019. 
• The highest number of fatal collisions occurred in July. The highest number of injury collisions occurred in January.
• Friday was the most collision-prone day of the week.
• The most collision-prone time period was the afternoon rush hour.
• Fatal collisions occurred most frequently in rural areas, while injury and property damage collisions occurred more frequently in urban areas.
• 82.5 percent of collisions involved one or more drivers identified as committing a driver error.
• Following too closely, running off the road, and making a left turn across the path of an oncoming vehicle were the most frequently identified driver errors contributing to casualty collisions.
• 22.3 percent of fatal collisions involved drivers travelling at a speed too great for the given conditions. Overall, 5.5 percent of collisions involved unsafe speed.