Truck associations meet with road safety minister Wingard on education campaign
The South Australian government has heard industry calls for greater education on shared responsibility as part of a road safety campaign.
Representatives from the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) and state member South Australian Road Transport Association (SARTA) met with road safety and police minister Corey Wingard on how the SA government and industry can work together to educate young drivers and road users on sharing the road safely with trucks.
The campaign will involve the redesigned Volvo ATA Safety Truck travelling to South Australia in 2020.
The ATA’s movement targets 16-25-year-olds, which it says are still overrepresented in casualty statistics nation-wide.
It aligns with other national road safety efforts, including that of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator’s ‘We Need Space’ campaign, which targets a more generalised audience.
“No matter who is giving the message it’s important we are giving the same message,” ATA safety, health and wellbeing director Melissa Weller tells ATN.
“However, bringing a community element is also really important for local campaigning.
“We’re getting local buy-in and contacts helping spread the message – local associations and state governments adding to the campaign with their own priorities to target locally.
“We want to address a relevant audience, get cut-through in a specific way – better educate and bring in a new generation who have knowledge of interacting with heavy vehicles and better developed driving skills.”
To ensure the message reaches the younger demographic, Weller notes the safety truck will contain more immersive communication, such as virtual reality (VR), delivering an opportunity to see the road from a truck driver’s perspective that also includes a vulnerable road user element.
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SARTA chief Steve Shearer says his association had long aimed for an ingrained message around sharing the road safely – with its campaigning culminating in the state government putting together an instructional booklet for motorists.
“That’s in a booklet, but not always in practice,” he says, adding there is “concern as an industry that the message isn’t getting through”, with the state’s road toll at 80 in 2019, 30 more than at the same time last year.
“Not enough is being done – with limited resources – to get the message through to motorists.
“ATA has a fantastic product and we agreed it’d be good to get it over here.
“It’s good that Minister Wingard was as receptive as he was and we’ll see where it goes from here.”
Shearer notes the idea is to align the campaign with major events such as the Careers Expo to attract the target demographic plus wider media.
SE FREEWAY
Shearer also tells ATN he was able to discuss recent concerns on the application of South Eastern Freeway descent rules, where “truck drivers are afraid to touch their brakes for fear of losing demerit points or their licence”.
SARTA had lobbied for a clarification on the rules and the advice it received was that the law doesn’t prohibit the use of brakes, but requires drivers use a gear low enough to avoid relying on a foot brake as the sole means of slowing down, Shearer explains.
“The problem is people haven’t heard that message.”
He says he asked Wingard to check with SA Police if officers were exercising correct judgement in determining whether drivers were solely relying on foot brakes.
“We need to make sure no police are applying that inappropriately – because the message amongst drivers will be not to touch brakes at all and that’s not right.”
Shearer notes that since a major fatality in 2014, some 3.5 million trucks have passed through the descent with “only a handful of incidents”.