Parkes, Forbes and Lachlan Shire Councils’ ‘Load Restraint Education Project’ has been heralded a success according to Project Coordinator and the Councils’ Road Safety and Injury Prevention Officer, Melanie Suitor.
“The results of the project show that load restraint awareness amongst the target group (farmers and transport companies) did improve over the course of the project and we have seen load restraint breaches decrease 69% this year, with no incidents occurring,” said Ms Suitor.
The project was funded by the Commonwealth Government through the NHVR’s Heavy Vehicle Safety Initiative (HVSI) and was supported by NSW Police, NSW Farmers and Transport for NSW, with assistance from NSW Rural Fire Service, SafeWork NSW and NSW Health’s Rural Adversity Mental Health Program.
Project results include:
• More than 100 farmers attended the Load Restraint Village Tour and all provided positive feedback about the program
• The how-to videos have had more than 1,000 views
• 1,100 additional load restraint packs have been distributed to the local community
• 311,740 people were reached through social media posts and there were 5,070 engagements – this is across five Facebook pages
• Police enforcement figures up to August 2021, show that local load restraint breaches have decreased 69% on the 2020 figures and 54% based on the 2019 figures, with no load restraint incidents recorded thus far in 2021.