How CVSA Blitz Weeks Encourage a Culture of Safety

This week, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) is conducting its 2025 Operation Safe Driver Week from July 13-19, during which law enforcement in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. will be on the lookout for drivers engaging in unsafe driving behaviors. 

Positioned by the CVSA as a safe-driving enforcement and outreach initiative, this year’s Operation Safe Driver Week has designated its area of focus as “reckless, careless, or dangerous driving.” Operation Safe Driver Week differs from the annual three-day CVSA International Roadcheck, typically held in May, which conducts comprehensive CMV inspections on trucks and drivers (during the 72-hour period, the CVSA averages 15 trucks inspected every minute across North America). Operation Safe Driver Week instead focuses on both commercial drivers and passenger vehicle drivers engaged in unsafe behavior such as speeding, distracted driving, following too closely, and drunk/drugged driving.

Read more: Get Ready for the CVSA Inspection Blitz. >>

While the extra law enforcement attention on the roadways can be frustrating to fleets, as FreightWaves recently highlighted, these regular events can serve as encouragement to up your game in the areas of safety and compliance. How your fleet performs during CVSA events reflects on your FMCSA profile and CSA scores; it can have a cascading effect on your corporate reputation with potential customers, insurance companies, and brokers. It can impact how well you can recruit and retain top drivers, since drivers want to feel confident that they are working for a company that prioritizes driver safety in both training and vehicle maintenance.

‍Building a Culture of Safety in Your Fleet

So, how do you go about building a corporate culture that values safety and places it top of mind in training, equipment maintenance, and operations? Today’s fleet management tools can be a significant aid in establishing safety habits, enhancing driver training, and providing real-time coaching to prevent or respond to incidents on the road.

How Technology Promotes Safe Habits

In-cab technology can be especially useful in helping drivers practice safer driving habits to avoid citations and prevent accidents. Safer driving can not only reduce costs from damaged equipment, expensive citations, and costly lawsuits, but it can also save lives. According to the U.S. National Safety Council, 44,762 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2023.

Telematics tools and fleet technology can help fleet managers and drivers increase situational awareness and encourage safer driving practices in several ways:

• Real-time data for coaching: Video tools and in-app playback can let drivers see exactly what they are or aren’t doing right away, so that they can course-correct as needed. This allows drivers to offer their own perspective in coaching sessions, and also helps managers call out positive habits as well as problematic ones.
• Flexible and fun training: Telematics tools that record driving habits, such as number of hard breaks or speeding, can be turned into data for gamified training, facilitating leader boards or friendly competitions. Ongoing training videos or modules can be accessed by drivers from their personal devices to complete during breaks at rest stops, making it easier to stay up-to-date on current training topics.
• Metrics that track improvement: Real-world data from your own trucks and drivers help management set and track important metrics that offer insight into the safety status of the fleet. Software tools make it simple to mine large amounts of data to extract helpful information to make decisions, and to share easily with stakeholders.
• Open tools that allow for new integrations: Good fleet management software is open and flexible, allowing the system to evolve and grow with the fleet. Whether it is incorporating new regulations and requirements, adding more trucks, or incorporating feedback from your drivers, fleet software can help future-proof operations.
• Better in-cab feedback: Top trucking-specific tools can improve situational awareness for drivers and support safer driving actions. As trucks get “smarter,” help is needed in prioritizing alerts and smoothly integrating sensor feedback. Telematics tools can help drivers know the current state of their truck and the route ahead to give them the best chances of a safely completed route.
• Reduced driver distraction: With more data comes more potential for distraction. A managed driver experience helps reduce distractions for the driver, prioritizing messages and notifications, and limiting access to unnecessary apps while wheels are turning. Fleets can customize the driver’s in-cab experience to support a safer driving experience.
• Less busywork and better user interface: Understanding a driver’s day allows technology partners to deliver a better driver experience, including reduced busywork and fewer “taps” to navigate between necessary apps and screens. Reducing this wasted time frees up drivers to focus on safer driving while reducing frustrations and busywork. This results in happier and more focused drivers.

Safety-Focused Fleet Add-Ons

In addition to an overall improved culture of safety, fleets can also leverage emerging technologies in the form of add-on apps to further support safety efforts. Platform Science, for example, offers an extensive library of third-party apps that are pre-approved to integrate seamlessly into its operating environment. 

Just like adding an app to your smartphone, fleets can further customize their technology platform to focus on specific elements or tasks, including safety. For example:

• Drivewyze Safety+: Set up customized “virtual signs” that automatically display when drivers reach a specific point on their route, such as a yard entrance, a destination, or a known hazard.
• Readi by Fatigue Science: Powered by AI and machine learning, this app enables hour-by-hour fatigue risk forecasting for each driver, up to 18 hours in advance—without the need for wearables or hardware. 
• Netradyne Driver.i: Netradyne’s vision-based Driver•i camera technology includes Edge Computing to capture and analyze video immediately, creating timely alerts to avoid risky situations. High-definition cameras use advanced AI object detection to “see” the entire drive, sending managers a complete safety picture via alerts, reports, driver scores, and video-on-demand.
• Whip Around: Streamline vehicle inspections, maintenance, and compliance. Drivers complete digital inspections via a mobile app that integrates seamlessly into the ecosystem, allowing fleet managers to track defects and schedule repairs.
• Phillips DriverAssist with TPMS: Bring real-time tire pressure updates to the cab, enhancing safety and productivity. Help drivers monitor tire health and address maintenance needs proactively.

The Virtual Vehicle Marketplace features 90+ trusted solutions available (and more being added all the time), and fleets can quickly discover, try, and roll out new tools without overhauling their entire system. Currently, 25 apps are marked as safety-focused tools in the library.

Read more: Meet the Virtual Vehicle Marketplace. >>

By finding the proper balance between technology, metrics, and coaching, fleets can not only prepare to perform well during CVSA blitz weeks but maintain an ongoing culture of safety that benefits drivers and operations. This leads to lower insurance rates, through driver recruitment and retention, and an improved corporate safety reputation for years to come.

Read more: Platform Science’s Sr. Director of Industry Solutions Gary Falldin recently wrote an article for Fleet Owner on “Building a Safety First Culture: Key Strategies for High-Performing Fleets.” Read it now. >> 

‍Ready to transform your drivers’ experience and use technology to build a culture of safety?  ‍‍View the entire suite of Platform Science tools now, including our library of add-on apps, or contact us today to schedule a demo.