Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks on Washington State (Report)

In 2004, Congress directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to work together to educate the drivers of passenger vehicles on how to share the road safely with commercial motor vehicles.  Washington State was selected to pilot this project because of a successful local program developed by the Washington State Patrol called Step Up and RIDE, where a trooper riding in a commercial motor vehicle observed unsafe driving behaviors and radioed other troopers, who then stopped and ticketed the driver. Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks combined the Step Up and RIDE program with high visibility enforcement directed at unsafe driving by any vehicle around commercial motor vehicles. The evaluation results provide a consistent picture of the effectiveness of the TACT pilot project.  Success was demonstrated at every step messages were received and understood, knowledge was changed in the intended direction, self reported behavior improved, and observed behavior confirmed the self reports