Near miss drives road safety
Age: Favourite song?
Four and a half
I like to listen to lots of songs. My favourite song is actually ‘Practise Being Godly’. Pink
Yes. I like kids on stage
Ava
When Daddy tickles me! What makes me sad is
Favourite colour? Favourite game? Who is your best friend? What makes you laugh? What makes you sad?
when Jeanie falls over
What are you afraid of?
I’m afraid of my nightmares! It’s a pretend cat from duck duck goose. It was a movie!
If you could change your name, what would it be? I would change it to Mary What are you really good at? I’m really good at a
game called Memory
What is your favourite thing to eat for lunch?
My favourite thing to eat for lunch is sandwiches! Who doesn’t like sandwiches?
What is your favourite fruit? Cherries! What do you want to be when you grow up?
would like to be a nurse. I take care of people! Mmm, seven!
How old is grown up?
I TWO close calls in one day was enough to force local truck driver Rod Hannifey to campaign for change.
“I just had one of those days,” Mr Hannifey told Dubbo Photo News.
“I had slept at Narrabri, got up at 7am in the morning and drove out of town. I hadn’t even reached highway speed and I saw one car behind me and then looked down and saw another car next to me with a B-double coming the other way.
“Both B-doubles had to swerve off the road into the gravel to let this car through the middle, and there were two little kids sitting in the back of the car.”
Further up the road, Mr Hannifey “missed a car by two centimetres” after a driver refused to slow down as they simultaneously crossed a narrow bridge.
“I thought to myself, how do I change this?” he recalled.
With this week marking National Road Safety Week, the 61-year-old road safety advocate is urging motorists to stay vigilant and educate themselves about trucks.
“If car drivers were taught to respect the size and the weight of trucks, then road safety would be improved for all,” Mr Hannifey, who has been campaigning for safer roads for over a decade, said.
“If all of my efforts save one life, then everything after that is a bonus.”
Over the past 12 months, 109 Australians have lost their lives following a crash involving a heavy truck.
More shockingly, on Monday the NSW road toll for this year stood at 136.
Minister for Regional Roads Paul Toole urged road users “to think about their behaviour when they get behind the wheel.
“The road toll isn’t just a number; it is made up of loved ones. These are husbands, wives, sons, daughters, friends and colleagues,” Mr Toole said.
“Your decisions could result in devastation and lost lives.”
Having been on the road for 30 years, Mr Hannifey is also determined to change the stigma attached to truckies.
“We are very badly portrayed in the media generally,” he said.
“I was on the road one day, there was an accident up near Rockhampton and on the radio every hour, on the hour it was ‘truck kills five people’. It turned up once on the radio the next morning and it said, ‘By the way, the five people were all drunk and playing chicken on the road,’ and it was never heard of again.
“That bloke went to work that day to feed his family and he was involved in a horrific accident that had nothing to do with anything other than the fact he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and these people were being stupid.”
After years of research, Mr Hannifey has produced a list of Truckies Top Tips to help cars and trucks share the road safely (see above).
1. Do not cut in front of trucks at traffic lights
2. Do not overtake a truck while it is turning a corner
3. Do not speed up when being overtaken by a truck
4. Fun fact: trucks are speed limited to 100km/h
5. Be courteous and don’t rush!
6. A truck needs all of its lane space so do not travel on the centre line
7. At night, dip your lights early when you approach a truck and don’t high beam until you have fully passed. Truck mirrors can be 15 times bigger than a car’s and don’t have an anti-flare position.
8. If driving a caravan, just maintain your speed when a truck overtakes – don’t brake or accelerate.
9. When overtaking a truck, be sure you can see enough clear road to pass safely
10. Do not try to overtake a truck when approaching a roundabout
11. To see visual examples of these top tips, visit www.sharetheroad.net.au z National Road Safety Week runs from May 6 – 12.