Caring caravanners reduce truckie suicide risk
RV travellers encouraged to show support for troubled truck driversBeing courteous and considerate to other road users when touring around with your caravan or RV can also help reduce the risk of mental health problems and suicide in truck drivers, a 'sharing the road' safety advocate has revealed.
"By joining the Truck Friendly caravan road safety program not only do you, as a caravanner or RV driver, find out more about safe towing practices, and how to safely interact with trucks and other vehicles while towing or driving on the highways you also may be helping do a bit to reduce mental illness and suicide," Ken Wilson, the founder of the Truck Friendly caravan road safety program, wrote recently on social media.
With around 200,000, mostly male truck drivers working in Australia, Wilson said that "suicide is the second highest cause of death in truck drivers under 39 years of age" and that "truck drivers are 13 times more likely to die at work than any other Australian worker".
He referred to Dr. Elizabeth Pritchard from Monash University who has researched the mental health of truck drivers, and said that “marriage breakdown, dislocation from family life and fears of infidelity were common among drivers and their partners”.
Wilson encourages all road travellers to participate in 'sharing the road' initiatives, like the ‘I’m Truck Friendly’ sticker program, which allows qualifying RV travellers with a UHF radio to attach the green sticker to the rear of their RV.
"Truck drivers can then call them up on the UHF and work together to safety overtake, making for a less stressful and dangerous manoeuvre," he said.
"Drivers are encouraged to build a cooperative and friendly relationship via the UHF chat and by their actions with other drivers."
Lonely life on the road
Wilson believes that many of the mental health challenges faced by truck drivers are caused by a largely solitary life on the road.
"(There is) more time to think and over-think problems and concerns than is healthy... Without regular distractions or positive reinforcement, the negative thoughts grow to unhealthy levels," he explained.
"This negativity can be reinforced by the bad or inconsiderate behaviour of other drivers, holding up traffic, accelerating at overtaking lanes and such like.
"The simple act of seeing a supportive sticker (I’m Truck Friendly), and a friendly person on the other end of a UHF conversation offering to help the truck driver, I believe, must help to break the cycle of negative thoughts."
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