Road Accident Action Group receives $24,070 grant to fund initiative that lets truck drivers know they are approaching stopping areas
By Brad Gardner | November 5, 2013
Truck drivers in north Queensland will soon have help in the form of green roadside reflectors to locate formal and informal stopping areas to pull over and rest.
The Queensland Government today announced a $24,070 grant for the Road Accident Action Group’s (RAAG) ‘3-2-1 green reflectors’ initiative in the State’s Bowen Basin area to help truck drivers manage fatigue.
RAAG Vice Chairman Noel Lang says the initiative involves installing three reflectors on a guide post 500m away from the stopping area, two reflectors 100m away and then one reflector on the guide post before the turn-off.
“It’s a way of giving truck drivers a decent chance to realise there is a rest stop and they’ve got 500m to be able to pull in,” Lang says.
He says many rural roads only have a sign just before the turn-off to a stopping area, so truck drivers are unable to slow down quick enough to pull over.
“As soon as they see three [reflectors], they’ll know that there is somewhere they can pull off if they want 500m ahead,” Lang says.
“It’s about driver fatigue and management and giving truck drivers locations where they can actually get off [the road].”
Lang says the RAAG plans to start the project as quick as it can and that it should take the group about two to three months to complete the necessary work, which includes mapping the location of each green reflector.
“Most of the highways are fairly well signed anyway, the main Bruce Highway. So our emphasis will be out in the western corridors in the Bowen Basin,” he says.
The RAAG also has plans to extend the initiative to Queensland’s central regions of Rockhampton and Emerald.
Lang says he hopes the locations of each green reflector will eventually be digitally mapped to show trucking operators and their drivers the location of every stopping area.
“That will be the long-term hope,” he says.
“Hopefully these companies will adopt this stuff and highlight it on the map.”
The funding comes from the Queensland Government’s $850,000 Community Road Safety Grants scheme, which is part of the Road Safety Action Plan.
Grants were handed out to local governments and community groups for 41 safety initiatives, including for driver and rider training, preventing drink driving and establishing a volunteer driver mentor program.
“I believe generating innovative local ideas will be critical to improving road safety and these grants let government, business and the community work together to target road safety issues in their area,” Queensland Transport and Main Roads Minister Scott Emerson says.
A second round of road safety grants for non-profit and local government groups will open in February 2014.
