COVER STORY
OPERATION SOBER HANDLE: CHANGING BEHAVIORS AND INCREASING PUBLIC SAFETY Based on Articles Submitted by Miriam Norman, Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutor, and Sgt. Travis Snider, Commercial Vehicle Division, Washington State Patrol Preventing commercial motor vehicle (CMV) crashes saves lives: Trucks and buses represent 5% of all registered vehicles in the U.S., yet they account for 22% of passenger vehicle occupant deaths in crashes of two or more vehicles. And when fatalities occur in a crash between a CMV and a passenger vehicle, the vast majority of deaths are among the
passenger vehicle occupants. Compounding the problem, one in 20 CMV drivers had driven under the influence and the rate of amphetamine use among CMV operators was almost 30 times higher than in the general population, according to the 2019 study, “Psychoactive Drug Consumption Among Truck Drivers.”
Yet, if you ask a patrol officer if he or she has ever willingly stopped a CMV, most will say no. Operation Sober Handle, the brainchild of Miriam Norman, a traffic safety resource prosecutor in Washington state, seeks to correct that paradox. Continued on next page
THIRD QUARTER 2021
19
