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2008 News Archives

November 19, 2008	Fatigue Impairment - Press Release
Road safety leaders raise awareness of driver fatigue for Remembrance Day for Road Traffic Victims
Today marks National Day of Remembrance for Road Crash Victims in Canada, and the Highway Safety Roundtable is warning Canadians to find somewhere safe to pull over if they’re too tired to drive. “This is a time of year when we stop to remember road traffic victims,” said Robert Tremblay, Director, Road Safety, Insurance Bureau of Canada, and member of the Roundtable. “And it is also a time for all drivers to think about what they can do to make our roads safer." “Driver fatigue is a deadly problem. According to a study released in June by the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, up to 19% of all fatal collisions are caused by fatigue,” Tremblay added. The Highway Safety Roundtable has produced several radio Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to highlight the dangers and prevalence of drowsy driving. They remind drivers that there is no better cure for driver fatigue than a good night’s sleep, and that those who find themselves nodding off at the wheel should pull over immediately and take a power nap.
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September 15, 2008	Fatigue Impairment - News
Road Safety Vision 2020: September 30
The CCMTA is holding a Road Safety Forum on Sep. 30-Oct 1, 2008, immediately following the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Traffic Committee Traffic Symposium and immediately prior to the fall CCMTA Standing Committee meetings in Ottawa. The forum will include broad participation from police services as well as governmental and non-governmental road safety stakeholders. It will feature a keynote speaker from the Netherlands, currently ranked as the safest country in the world, who will highlight the benefits of an integrated safe system approach to making road travel as safe as possible. Forum attendees will participate in facilitated sessions that are intended to flesh out their views on the overall framework of the road safety plan that will succeed Road Safety Vision 2010.


July 20, 2008	Fatigue Impairment - News
Council of Ministers: 3-year road safety plans
Deputy Ministers are now working with three-year action plans to get Canada’s Road Safety Vision 2010 on target. At the beginning of the decade the goal was to make Canada’s roads the safest in the world. We ranked 5th best then. Now we are 11th in terms of deaths per billion kilometres travelled (OECD countries). Road Safety Vision 2010 guides provincial ministries and police services in their allocation of resources. The value of similar target setting plans has been well demonstrated in Europe. But last year’s CCMTA's "Mid-Term Review" showed Canada has not effectively embraced the model. The review showed current trend lines suggest not one of 12 targets is likely to be met. The trend lines on the three worst performing targets -- speeding, vulnerable users and commercial vehicles -- are negative to flat. The two best performing targets are intersection crash reductions and seat belt use. In 2006 2,889 Canadians were killed on the road. Transport Canada’s estimate of the annual cost of collisions is $25 billion. The Mid-Term Review is at: http://www.ccmta.ca/english/pdf/rsv2010_midtermreport_final.pdf


June 20, 2008	Fatigue Impairment - News
Police Services and Driver Fatigue
At the CCMTA Annual Meeting in May the Strategies to Reduce Impaired Driving Sub-Group reported police services have yet to respond to a request to consider a standardized fatigued driver checklist. But the group noted the challenge police traffic services are facing with the implementation of C-2 for the end of this month. C-2 is the impaired driving Criminal Code amendments which require police to set up, within existing budgets, a new drug testing regime for drivers. The Highway Safety Roundtable has worked with Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police since 2005. In August 2007, the Roundtable’s Mark Yakabuski met with the CACP to find ways to reduce crashes caused by tired drivers. Some results of the meeting include the collection of police-specific driver fatigue information at: http://www.fatigueimpairment.ca/sec_fat/en_policing.asp The Roundtable looks forward to working with police in the development of its presentation to the National Pipeline/Convoy Highway Criminal Interdiction Conference on May 7, 2009 in Edmonton.


June 19, 2008	Fatigue Impairment - News
New Report: Driver fatigue is a contributing factor in up to 19% of road fatalities
The Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators released a new report on crashes involving drowsy drivers today (June 19, 2008). The CCMTA report covers national fatality trends from 2000 to 2005 as recorded in Transport Canada’s National Collision Database. The report uses a statistical model to estimate the number of Canadians killed as a result of fatigue impairment. The Highway Safety Roundtable has worked with the CCMTA since 2004 to develop this measure of driver fatigue. The Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators is made up of the top civil servants responsible for road safety.


May 1, 2008	Fatigue Impairment - News
Police Services and Driver Fatigue
At the CCMTA Annual Meeting in May the Strategies to Reduce Impaired Driving Sub-Group reported police services have yet to respond to a request to consider a standardized fatigued driver checklist. But the group noted the challenge police traffic services are facing with the implementation of C-2 for the end of this month. C-2 is the impaired driving Criminal Code amendments which require police to set up, within existing budgets, a new drug testing regime for drivers. The Highway Safety Roundtable has worked with Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police since 2005. In August 2007, the Roundtable’s Mark Yakabuski met with the CACP to find ways to reduce crashes caused by tired drivers. Some results of the meeting include the collection of police-specific driver fatigue information at: http://www.fatigueimpairment.ca/sec_fat/en_policing.asp The Roundtable looks forward to working with police in the development of its presentation to the National Pipeline/Convoy Highway Criminal Interdiction Conference on May 7, 2009 in Edmonton.


February 18, 2008	Fatigue Impairment - News
Working Together to Understand Driver Fatigue
On Feb. 14 the Highway Safety Roundtable released “Working Together to Understand Driver Fatigue: Report on the Symposium Proceedings. The report summarizes much of the current knowledge. It includes presentation materials from road safety experts, Dr. Alison Smiley, President of Human Factors North, and a leading researcher in driver behaviour and accident analysis; Yoassry Elzohairy, Senior Advisor, Ontario Ministry of Transportation; and Dr. Henry Moller of the University Health Network and the University of Toronto Sleep Research Unit. It includes a comprehensive bibliography.


January 26, 2008	Fatigue Impairment - Press Release
CCMTA Completes Mid-Term Review of Road Safety Vision 2010
Canada's roads are gradually becoming safer to travel on due in large part to the efforts of road safety stakeholders in support of the country's national road safety plan, called Road Safety Vision 2010. While this measured improvement is encouraging, a mid-term review of this safety plan, which was recently conducted by independent consultants, indicated that Canada's roads could become even safer through additional efforts by agencies responsible for road safety. Canada's national road safety plan contains both a vision - 'to have the safest roads in the world' and a quantitative target - 'to reduce fatalities and serious injuries by 30% during the 2008-2010 period over comparable figures during the 1996-2001 period'. Canada's level of road safety is measured on a 'deaths per billion vehicle-kilometres travelled' basis. Canada's death rate is compared with the world's other leading industrial nations in order to determine if Canada is achieving its goal of having 'the safest roads in the world'. Road Safety Vision 2010 is a nine-year national road safety action plan, with a 2002-2010 timeframe, that seeks to achieve reductions in casualties through targeted interventions that are developed and implemented by governmental and non-governmental organizations focusing on the most critical road safety problems such as drinking and driving, non-use of seat belts and speeding.
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