|
Caravans
and trucks share a rest area |
Series launched
at Stone the Crows Festival
Videos deliver top tips
for sharing roads
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AWARD-winning transport industry and
road safety campaigner Rod Hannifey has released new videos designed to
improve relationships between grey nomads, truckies and other road users.
The nine Truckies Top Tips videos were launched at the recent Stone
the Crows Festival in NSW where they attracted a myriad of comments and
questions from festival-goers at Wagga Wagga, covering the usual
discussion points of trucks and caravans sharing the
road ... plus the thorny issue of rest areas.
"It was a good crowd and very interactive," Mr Hannifey said.
"We kept going for an hour and a half and still had a mob of people at the
end with further questions."
The videos were funded by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator through the
National Heavy Vehicle Road Safety Initiative and are available online for
free.
One of the topics in the nine-video series deals with the problem of
trucks being squeezed out of roadside rest areas.
Mr Hennifey complains there are too few of these vital facilities on
highways, little shade, not enough toilets and even fewer for women
truckies.
"In fact, there's often no parking space for truckies when the holiday
season is on," he said.
Easter was a case in point, with many truck spots at service centres
‒ often the only place truckies could access
toilets, showers and meals ‒ taken over by the
holidaying public.
This often happened in designated truck parking areas or truckstops on
highways, he said.
"Offenders often give little thought to all the food and fuel they use and
which is being delivered by the same trucks they are denying basic
facilities," Mr Hannifey added.
The videos can be used as a resource, and he is
encouraging groups and clubs to share them "far
and wide".
They can be accessed here.