NEW "truck wise" road safety messages are being rolled out as more cars hit the road post COVID-19 restrictions.
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A Bendigo group is rolling out road advertisements on trucks to warn drivers about the dangers of moving around big rigs, City of Greater Bendigo mayor Margaret O'Rourke said.
"You will see trucks such as this one travelling between Bendigo and Melbourne, and we have a program that will be going into schools," she said.
Cars were at fault in 80 per cent of fatal crashes with trucks last year, research from National transport Insurance showed.
"I think all of us can forget at times about the swing big transporters have when turning and making sure you have that distance from them," Cr O'Rourke said.
A group including the council, central Victorian truck drivers, the TAC, Deaking University and Bendigo Tech School are putting the finishing touches on virtual reality software to help school students.
The council's Katherine Wrzeniski said it would help learner drivers understand the risks of certain moves around trucks.
"What we are looking at is creating scenarios. Users start off at a transport depot doing a series of safety tests. Then they find themselves in a truck next to a driver," she said.
"They deal with a scenario in which a driver cuts in front of a truck from the driver's point of view, and then from a car passenger's view."
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The program is being fast tracked after successful tests with Bendigo students and could be rolled out to two schools by term three.
Transport industry director Damien Power said cars often entered his trucks' blind spots.
"Anything we can do as an industry to raise awareness is a great thing," the director of Power's Country Express Bendigo said.
Marla Stone - who co-owns company Agri-Trans - said it did not matter which roads truckies drove on, they still needed to keep an eye on the cars around them.
All roads are high in (crash) statistics, whether you are in the middle of Bendigo, on its outskirts or in the small towns that surround it," she said.
The Truck Wise campaign came out of a 2017 Bendigo council transport study in which operators reported multiple dangers on regional roads.
"There was obviously a need for a campaign to educate and make young people, especially, aware of trucks in their areas," she said.
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