Major trucking company Lowes Petroleum is pleading for motorists to not be ‘THAT’ driver to save lives this Rural Road Safety Month and especially during the upcoming school holidays.
‘THAT’ driver: you know the one people keep talking about for years to their friends: the one who overtook you on a blind corner, across double white lines, texting on their phone as you passed. The one that put your families lives so at risk, with their stupidity, that people are talking about it for years.
Lowes Petroleum’s General Manager of Health, Safety, Security and Environment (HSSE) Bernie Morris said sadly almost every one of us has a ‘THAT” driver story.
In Dubbo, local fire fighters and Mayor Matthew Dickerson joined Mr Morris in an event aimed at encouraging motorists to take responsibility for their driving: embracing the Rural Road Safety Foundation’s sunflowers symbol ‘help sow the seeds of change – road safety starts with you’.
Rarely a day goes by when Mr Morris isn’t left gobsmacked after reviewing the deadliest of driver dash cam footage, in his HSSE role, as motorists take risks on rural roads they would not in the city. With over 200 drivers transporting millions of litres of fuel a year across hundreds of thousands of kilometres of rural roads a year the footage almost makes his heart stop.
“NSW had the highest deaths recorded on rural roads, making up 233 of the 811 lives lost nationally,” he said. “Rural roads deaths in 2023 made up 64% of the road toll. School holidays kick off at the end of the month and what upsets me most is the number of school-aged children who are also part of that road toll.
“When you think about that, those are people who weren’t involved in the driving, they weren’t involved in planning, but unfortunately, they’ve been the ones impacted.”
The leading regional fuel transporter has again pledged its support behind National Rural Road Safety Month. Although rural and regional roads are significantly less populated than urban centres, fatalities on rural and regional roads make up roughly two-thirds of the driving death toll each year.
Following the 4.9% increase in fatal crashes on Australian rural roads last year, the Rural Road Safety Foundation has released research to help drive down the heightened risk in regional areas. New data has shown an alarming trifecta of individual attitudes toward risk, consequences, and overall lack of rural road safety resilience, may be fuelling fatal and serious incidents.
Mr Morris said Lowes Petroleum took rural road safety personally with almost its entire operation, 500 plus people, regionally based.
“We know from personal experience, when one of our long-time customers died in a car crash a few years ago, just how much a road death impacts communities,” Mr Morris said. “It is not an exaggeration to say almost everyone shares the pain: pain that resonates through the community.”
From January to July of this year, 92 lives have been lost in collisions involving heavy vehicles — 60 of these were in regional, rural or remote areas.
Alarmingly, the RSS research confirmed that half of Australians, (50%), admit to unsafe driving practises on rural roads. Nearly half (47%) admitted to speeding on country roads, 20% acknowledged driving despite feeling fatigued, and 14% are guilty of using a mobile phone behind the wheel.
Notably, metropolitan drivers were more likely to disregard rural roads safety, with more than a third, (34%) admitting they are less vigilant about road safety in regional areas (compared to 24% of local rural drivers).
The primary reason Australian drivers are breaking laws on regional roads is that they believe it’s safe (41%), but distraction (18%) and not getting caught (11%) were also key factors.
The RSS research has also shed light on a lack of preparedness for regional road risks, with a startling 85% of drivers failing to check safety guidance before road trips. Additionally, many neglect essential preparations, with 63% not carrying emergency supplies, 51% failing to plan rest stops, and 46% not checking the weather or planning routes.
