An alarm or vibrating seat in the cabin of a truck could be the difference between drivers keeping their concentration on the road, or causing a fatal crash.
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NSW Roads, Maritime and Freight Minister Melinda Pavey visited Albury on Tuesday and said the government could not force trucks from all states to use the latest technology, but has called on them to do so voluntarily.
“In about October of last year we could see we were having an unexplained increase in the number of heavy vehicle incidents involving casualties,” she said.
“The situation hasn’t improved and I think it’s important that we as a society and as a community have some good conversations around this.”
The minister travelled in a Ron Finemore B-double with the latest technology such as cameras on the driver’s face and the front of the truck.
Truck industry representative Paul Pulver said the cameras monitor the state of driver, the distance to the vehicle in front and if the truck is veering out of a lane.
“It looks at facial movements and also his eye movements. If he’s to look to the right-hand side for two seconds that’s call a distraction - the seat will actually vibrate and a buzzer will go off to alert the driver,” he said.
“It’s like you’re driving down the road and you’ve got a person in the passenger seat all the time and he’s watching you … When you say to drivers that’s what it’s about, their acceptance level rises.”
Ms Pavey said cameras may seem intrusive at first, but were actually a clever way to keep everybody safe.
“It’s about having highly-trained and skilled drivers not afraid of having that type of measuring,” she said.
“We also must remember that 65 per cent of incidents involving heavy vehicles are not the truck driver’s fault, it is the car driver. We must all be respectful around the difficulties around driving a truck.”
Albury MP Greg Aplin was investigating the issue as chair of the Stay Safe Committee.
“We’ve seen a spike recently in casualties and crashes involving heavy vehicles and while they only represent 2.4 per cent of all vehicle registrations in the state, they have been involved in some 18 per cent of the fatalities - that’s something that really concerns us,” he said.
“We’re also calling on motorists to be aware when driving around trucks, the precautions you need to take in those light vehicles - don’t cut in front of vehicles that are heavy because they take so long to stop.”
