Following the revelation by experts that young drivers between 18 and 25 years old are 4 times more likely to be involved in serious or fatal crashes, safety campaigns that focus on young drivers and teaching them to drive safely around heavy vehicles are crucial.
Given that the rise in population in cities and the demand for new infrastructure is growing, this is an issue that must be addressed if we wish to minimise collisions, serious injuries and possible fatalities involving trucks.
Over the next 2 decades, the number of trucks on Australian roads is expected to double, so there’s no getting around the issue.
Fatal crashes involving heavy trucks have claimed the lives of 184 people in the 12 months to March 2018, around Australia and most of these crashes are caused by the other party and not the truck driver. This is because people aren’t aware of how to safely interact with trucks. In the fatal crashes, 65% of these other parties were aged 21 or under.
Despite these high crash statistics, there haven’t been many safety campaigns focusing on safety around trucks.
Recently the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland created a video to get the message across.
A recent campaign was designed by students from Swinburne University and Melbourne creative agency Hard Edge, since research suggests campaign creators who are part of a target audience are better placed to understand the visual tone, language and behaviour of their target demographic.
Students interviewed over 200 participants between 18 and 25, and found out that 80% never considered the truck industry and weren’t aware of the risks involved with heavy vehicles on the road.
Half of the participants believed truck drivers to be aggressive and unskilled, 20% were unaware of the location of blind spots on trucks. They also found that 60% were vaguely aware trucks had blind spots and most of them underestimated the time trucks take to brake to avoid crashes.
