Fatal training accidents in the Army hit a record low in 2021 with service officials crediting safety campaigns timed at statistically more dangerous training periods.
Fatal training accidents in the Army hit a record low in 2021 with service officials crediting safety campaigns timed at statistically more dangerous training periods. However, off-duty accidents rose 20% from the previous year and remained the top cause of death among soldiers.
8 SHILOH, Ill. The U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center will use the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command’s motorcycle safety awareness for non-motorcycle-riders training in next month’s Army-wide Motorcycle Safety Awareness Campaign.
Each year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration designates May as Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month. This observance coincides with the beginning of riding season for many Soldiers and also serves as an early kickoff for the critical days of summer.
Maj. Gen. Heidi Hoyle, SDDC commanding general, understanding that the Army’s focus concerning motorcycle safety has traditionally been placed on riders and their training, asked her safety office to provide a motorcycle safety awareness for non-motorcycle-riders training packet to the SDDC workforce ahead of the motorcycle riding season.
. The Army recorded its fewest accidental deaths on record in 2020, as coronavirus restrictions kept more soldiers off the road and hunkered down at home. There were 96 soldiers and Army civilians recorded as “mishap fatalities” for the fiscal year, less than the previous low of 109 accidental deaths in 2016, the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center’s annual safety report found. Of the 96 deaths, 25 happened on duty. The reduction was likely because of restrictions and possibly curtailed training activities brought on by the pandemic, the report said. “(W)e can look at trends from past years, especially with private motor vehicles, and be reasonably confident stop-movement orders and restricted travel had a positive net effect on mishaps in 2020,” Brig. Gen. Andrew C. Hilmes, USACRC commanding general and director of Army Safety, said in a statement.