It is one of those perennial questions asked by the trucking industry, and one where we rarely get a sensible answer, but we have to keep asking it, how can we educate car drivers?

Here we have two video examples, one released this week by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator and one from ten years ago from the South Australian roads authority. They pose the same question and come up with some answers exactly the same and others with a different emphasis.

The one released this week stars, Australian country music personality, James Blundell, who knows what it’s like to spend hours at a time on the road. Whether it’s as a touring artist for the last 35 years or through his work on his farm at Stanthorpe, he knows how important it is to drive safely around heavy vehicles. James has teamed up with the NHVR to put a new spin on his smash hit ‘Way Out West’ to help motorists understand that We All Need Space.

The ‘We All Need Space’ campaign is a long term project from the NHVR. which is using a multi-pronged strategy to get the message out there. The use of celebrities is always a draw card for these kinds of initiatives and the recent launch of a series of humorous videos starring ‘self-confessed excellent driver’ and viral comedian, Jimmy Rees, was an example of this.

The video from License SA has been up on YouTube for ten years and has been viewed 64,000 times, over that period, that’s OK, but does suggest this kind of video does not get much cut-through and is not going to make a massive contribution to crash statistics. Hopefully the new one will get more views and have a positive effect on driver behaviour.