AUSTRALIA'S leading caravan club has called for more rest area
facilities in New South Wales.
"While RVers acknowledge that truckies operate on a time schedule and must
have regulatory rest stops, RVers too need fatigue management," chairman
Craig Humphrey said.
While welcoming the State Government's decision to slash caravan
registration fees by 40 percent, this was only one issue affecting RVers
in NSW that needed attention.
"The government needs to start doing something to improve not only the
number of roadside rest areas, but also the allocated space available in
rest areas for RVs," he said.
"We have truckies and RVers vying for space in rest areas. Some of the
angst arising between truckies and 'vanners at rest stops is the result of
inadequate space and number of rest areas currently available for RVers
along New South Wales highways."
Overnight
stays and fatigue management
|
Mr Humphrey said that if the government was serious about helping
caravanners, then it needed to improve the
availability and size of roadside rest areas to accommodate the travelling
RVer for overnight stays and fatigue management.
The club has recently called for a summit of interested stakeholders in a
major effort to resolve issues between truckies and 'vanners on the road
and develop protocols under which both road-user groups could work.
"All affected stakeholder groups need to collaborate together, be working
off the same page and at the same time, be delivering the same message,"
Mr Humphrey said.
"At the moment we are seeing several stakeholders, including our own club,
using individual resources.
"At times they have slightly different messages that are not reaching the
full targeted audiences."
Mr Humphrey said its NSW members were thankful for the reduction in rego
fees, which would become effective from November
1.
"However, our club questions what the NSW Government is doing to align the
state with others such as Victoria when it comes
to setting registration fees on caravans and camper trailers.
"Compared to other states, the NSW registration
fee for private caravan owners is overpriced, placing an unfair burden on
caravanners," he added.
