“All our membership recognises when it comes to health and safety they control a lot of what goes on on their sites but not when their people get out on the roads.
“Our roads here in Taranaki are not at their very best and there are a lot of difficult driving conditions and we wanted to put something out there to raise awareness.”
Eggers said that unfortunately, the drivers’ antics did not come as a surprise to her.
“One of the video[s] where you see a black SUV going up Mt Messenger on the wrong side of the road - I was actually on the road that day and I watched that vehicle go up there with my eyes opened in horror.
“I also do a lot of driving around our region and have a full understanding that when people see yellow lines before going to pass and blind corners it doesn’t seem to faze a lot of people out.”
It was hard to know what some people were thinking, she said.
“The consequences of their actions are super serious but clearly they don’t have a clear understanding of what they are doing.”
Her message for those taking risks was simple.
“Maybe their actions are going to kill someone else, not just themselves.”
The video emphasised the need for driver education about the risks posed by other road users, she said.
Symons Group Health and Safety manager Ivan Chapple said the videos were from cameras set up in the truckies cabs as a fatigue management system.
“If it sees any signs of fatigue it sounds an alarm and wakes the driver up.”
The system also allowed drivers to record poor behaviour they saw out on the roads, Chapple said.
“The sad truth is that it’s just another day in the office to a truck driver. This is something they see on a daily basis and those are just the ones they’ve pushed the record button for.
“The footage is shocking no doubt, but it’s not surprising either, unfortunately. It’s pretty rife out there.”
The worst behaviour tended to be on the very winding bits of Mt Messenger, he said.
“They’re passing with no idea of what’s coming and bearing in mind that our trucks are 20m long, so it’s not a little dart on to the other side of the road and come back in. They’re out there for a long time. The passing on blind corners is the scariest bit.”
The footage was all from this year and it was just luck that in that time there had not been a serious accident, he said.
“The trauma that it puts a driver through is just horrendous. If they see somebody that’s involved in something serious and they’re seriously injured or they lose their life that sits with the drivers forever.
“And there are drivers in the industry that have left the profession because of something someone else has done and it’s ended up in front of them and there’s nothing the truck driver can do about it.”
Many dangerous drivers had a truck driver to thank for still being on the road, he said.
“They can see this stuff coming, so when they see someone doing something silly in the rear vision mirror they will pull over as much as they can and slow down to let them pass, so there’s quite a few things that get avoided simply because truck drivers are making allowances for other idiots on the road.”
The problem was not limited to Taranaki and whenever possible the company forwarded footage to the police to chase up prosecutions or issue warnings, Chapple said.
