Spend a morning talking to your local Probus Club about how older people can keep themselves safer while driving around trucks. Give them some tips and information about our braking distances and how we can now travel at 100kph so there is no need to pull out in front of us. Tell them why it is important to pull over regularly if they are towing a caravan and how to use their “CB radios” to communicate with us.

Given that more than 80% of all fatal crashes involving trucks is not our fault and that the rate of crashes involving older drivers is on the rise in the past month I’ve accessed over 200 older drivers in South Gippsland alone. I hope it is making a difference.

Be courteous in parking areas and service centers – Remember these are workplaces for our men and women of the highway.

Ensure your load is restrained and suitable for your type of vehicle.

Drive so others survive #DriveSoS

Never Never Never speed up when being overtaking by a truck, especially on overtaking lanes, you may then be sitting in there blind spot near the left steer tyre and when they pull back in to clear traffic behind them you will cause an accident, this recently happened to me and I spun a car around at 100k’s per hour and now I have fitted two camera’s to remove this blind spot.

Always keep a safe distance to the vehicle ahead and assume they may slam their brakes on at any second.

When walking to your vehicle, go the long way around to the driver’s door and make sure there is a wheel(s) on every axle.

Don’t Use your Phone whilst Driving.

We have set up Geo fences that prompts the driver at all high-risk bus stops tells the driver of the precautionary measures to reduce Risk of an incident

Make the time to perform pre-start checks – in this busy life we often take things for granted and look to rush onto the next thing!

My safety tip would be to MAKE time to perform pre-start checks on your vehicle. This can include everything from tyre pressure and lights to oil and water.

The time made to undertake these tasks will be a fraction of the time that it will take to rectify the issue during your journey.

It may even enhance your vehicles performance and fuel economy.

That the use of uhf radios be encouraged instead of getting a ticket most truck’s and cars.caravans have them fitted and warnings. road conditions can be broadcast

Never use your mobile phone while driving and, a tip to stay alert is to count the number of a certain colour car in between each highway exit