For those campaigners trying to get the message out this week about looking after safety on the roads, it must have felt like they were driving into a head wind on road safety with all of the noise and bluster around the last week of the Federal Election campaign.
Here is an important issue which does not get that much airplay anyway, and then on the week where it has concentrated on building up to a major campaign in the media and online, it is virtually drowned in the noise already being created by the politicos.
Many people would probably have not noticed it was National Road Safety Week, this week. In fact, many would have tuned out of all media, just to get away from the relentless drive to get Scomo, Albo et al in front of us in every form of media, both mainstream and social.
We have little chance of getting a better understanding of the kind of behaviour needed when driving around trucks, when the target audience has turned down the volume on all of the information they receive just to get some respite from the tidal wave of the last few weeks.
As it happens, the road safety stats for last year are likely to be much improved on the average, simply because there were so many fewer car drivers on the road, due to the rolling lock downs and border closures we had to endure.
There is still a lot of work to do to get any kind of cut through into the consciousness of those light vehicle drivers who share the road with us. It genuinely is a steep mountain to climb and the election timing has done nothing to help the cause.
The important point is to remember that this is still a vital fight to have. The unnecessary death and injuries caused by accidents involving trucks is still unacceptably high. Yes, we have come a long way in the last 30 years but there is still some way to go yet.
The trucking industry has vastly improved the behaviour of its own drivers and the condition of the fleet. Now we need to knuckle down on getting some real communication with those who share the road with us. We need to develop a respect in car drivers for trucks, but not out of fear, but based on a good knowledge of the way the trucks themselves behave in any situation.
