Gippsland’s truck drivers are turning on their lights during daylight hours for the next 10 weeks in a campaign to reduce collisions.
The industry-driven initiative is a response to figures that show the number of collisions between trucks and other vehicles is on the rise.
The freight industry said there was a peak in incidents over the corresponding 10 weeks last year, where 17 crashes involving heavy vehicles were recorded in Gippsland.
Fifteen of those crashes involved other road users and took place in the daytime.
Willaton Transport director Bernie Willaton said it was important to raise awareness.
“You can’t drive around with the air horn on all day alerting people, but you certainly can leave your lights on, it all helps,” Mr Willaton said.
A Facebook page has been set up for the campaign, ‘Truckies Lighting Up For Safety’, where a video was posted of a near-miss on a Gippsland road caught by an in-truck camera.
The footage shows a car coming from the opposite direction suddenly veering into the truck’s lane, with the truck driver swerving to avoid a head-on crash.
ANC Forestry managing director Daryl Hutton began installing daytime running lights, or DRLs, on his trucks in 2011.
“I had a couple of incidents in the forest and so I had to work out ‘what can I do to try and prevent these?’,” Mr Hutton said.
“Now the cars might pick the truck up three corners away instead of meeting them on a blind corner.
“The drivers come back and said ‘they noticed that instantly’.”
The campaign has the support of VicRoads, Victoria Police, local councils and WorkSafe.
Latrobe Highway Patrol’s Sergeant Clint Wilson said it was an important initiative.
“Road safety is not just VicRoads, Victoria Police and the State Government, it’s about road users getting on board and owning a bit of road safety as well,” Sgt Wilson said.
“If we can do this right across the board, we’ll see a reduction in collisions.
“Not just here in Gippsland, but this is something that could be applied throughout Victoria and nationally.”
Truckies are being urged to pledge their support for the campaign today, by sending an email to lightuptruck@gmail.com where they will automatically receive a Pledge Form and a Driver Awareness Package.
All road users are encouraged to ‘like’ the campaign’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/truckieslightup
* Michael DiFabrizio is a University of Wollongong journalism student
