By Joy Lukachick
Chattanooga Times Free Press
CATOOSA, Ga. — State officer Christopher Ware will never forget when he answered an emergency call nine years ago and saw a car lodged beneath an 18-wheeler.
The family inside the car was dead.
“The car went in front of a tractor-trailer,” said Ware, who was then at the start of his career with the Georgia Department of Public Safety. “It’s just so dangerous.”
That memory has stuck with Ware, who is part of a three-month public awareness program targeting commercial truck safety along Interstate 75.
As blue police lights flashed along the side of I-75 last week, passenger vehicles and commercial trucks between exit 350 in Catoosa County and exit 326 in Whitfield County were being pulled over by Georgia Department of Public safety officers.
That section is one of the most dangerous parts of I-75 for crashes, officials said.
“That’s a major corridor between Canada to Florida,” said Sgt. Tommy Sturdivan, with the Georgia State Patrol. “So you have a lot of traffic on it.”
In the last three years, there have been 384 crashes involving commercial trucks in Catoosa and Whitfield counties, data show. Those crashes injured 272 people and killed 17.
“The most dangerous types of wrecks [usually] involve 18-wheelers,” Ware said.
Sgt. Mark Wesley, with the Safety Department’s motor carrier compliance division, said a recent study showed as many as 70 percent of fatal truck-car crashes were the fault of the passenger car.
U.S. Xpress Enterprises Inc., a trucking company based in Chattanooga, teaches its drivers to stay about two football fields from the driver in front of them, said Bob Viso, vice president of safety.
“When you’re driving a regular car you’re worried about your own space,” Viso said. “With professional driving you have a huge blind spot. ... You really have to pay attention to what everyone else is doing around you.”
Using the crash data, the Georgia Department of Public Safety highlights the major problem areas in the state and then runs enforcement waves in that area for six weeks, Wesley said.
With more than 10 officers from several divisions, Safety Department officers are patrolling I-75 watching for vehicles traveling too closely to commercial trucks and trucks tailing vehicles, Wesley said.
“We’re looking at driving behavior and aggressive driving,” Wesley said.
Officials have carved out two weeks each month in November, January and February to patrol the area five days a week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
When Ware pulls a driver over during the special patrol, he also gives the driver a flier that warns about leaving more space for trucks.
Inspections on commercial trucks also are a large part of the program, checking to make sure truck drivers are complying with the law and the trucks are in working order, Sturdivan said.
Viso said that when a U.S. Xpress driver is cited, the company also will take corrective action depending on the nature of the violation.
“But we educate the driver on how to be best prepared for an inspection,” he said.
On a recent day, Sturdivan spent 45 minutes to an hour checking individual trucks selected for inspection and looking through drivers’ logs.
Depending on the severity of the violation, officials may require the truck to be parked until the repairs can be made, Wesley said.
If the driver is over on hours, he or she is required to stay off the road for 10 hours, he said.
“I see [wrecks] where brakes failed. I’ve seen problems where driver fatigue occurred,” Sturdivan said. “You want to do whatever you can to prevent that from happening.”
Copyright 2010 Chattanooga Publishing Company