Australia’s peak body for truck drivers says it will launch a national campaign to stamp out an illegal courtesy used by the haulage industry for decades but fraught with danger.<\/p>\n
In the 1950s, truckers started using indicators to signal to drivers behind that it was safe to overtake.<\/p>\n
More than 70 years later, the habit has been widely adopted as an unofficial signal between drivers, but the road safety authority says it is “fraught with danger”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A road train in WA’s south, where grain harvesting time presents risks for drivers. (ABC Great Southern: Andrew Chounding)<\/p>\n
Dead cow, close call\u00a0<\/p>\n
Heather Jones, truck driver and founder of Pilbara Heavy Haulage Girls, says use of the signal has declined in recent years, but was still common on country roads.<\/p>\n
“I saw a dead cow on the road \u2026 I indicated to go around the cow and next minute, in the bush, there was this big dust ball and this car going round and round,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The car behind me thought I was indicating for them to come around.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Heather Jones has witnessed crashes due to car drivers thinking a truck indicator is a signal to overtake. (Supplied: Heather Jones)<\/p>\n
Further south, Brad Morrell drives trucks on Great Eastern Highway and said grain harvest time was particularly dangerous.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been caught so many times about to turn the steering wheel right and nearly collected the bumper of a car racing past,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Morrell says there needs to be a greater ongoing police presence on the roads, not just during holiday periods.<\/p>\n
“We’re all worried and we just don’t want to be a part of it,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We don’t want to be a part of someone dying through someone else’s stupidity.”<\/p>\n
Mr Morrell and Ms Jones both said a two-way radio was the preferred method for drivers to communicate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Campaign to stamp out practice\u00a0<\/p>\n
The signalling practice has been slammed by Transafe WA executive officer Rob Sharpe, who said it was inherently dangerous due to different interpretations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rob Sharpe left the transport industry after becoming concerned about safety. (Supplied: Transafe WA)<\/p>\n
“If you search it online, AI will tell you in Australia and New Zealand we use the left-hand indicator to say it’s safe to pass, but the common way in Australia is using the right-hand indicator,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The law does say indicators are meant to show your intention to turn, change lanes or move in or out of traffic.<\/p>\n
“Using them for any other purpose is misleading and an offence if it contributes to unsafe driving.”<\/p>\n
The overtaking habit is illegal and breaches road rules. (ABC Great Southern: Andrew Chounding)<\/p>\n
The Australian Trucking Association (ATA) has announced it will run a national campaign about the dangers of signalling to overtake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ATA chair Mark Parry said the habit was illegal and breached Australian road rules.<\/p>\n
“Given this has been raised and given there is a history of terrible accidents as a result of this, we will put out a safety brief,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“If it only happened once, a serious incident, injury or fatality, then that’s once too often.”<\/p>\n
Mr Parry said the onus of safety was on the motorist looking to overtake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s peak body for truck drivers says it will launch a national campaign to stamp out an illegal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,114263,114267,44,114266,114265,10580,41,39,42,40,114264,11038,114268],"class_list":{"0":"post-176308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-heavy-haulage","10":"tag-indicator-flash","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-overtake","13":"tag-regional-roads","14":"tag-road-deaths","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories","19":"tag-truck-safety","20":"tag-trucking","21":"tag-unofficial-overtaking-signal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}