Truckies target disrespectful caravanners

The ongoing spat between caravanners and truckies over who has the right to use overnight roadside rest areas has gone up a gear, with a popular trucking publication launching a ‘name and shame’ campaign targeting RV travelers caught "flouting the rules’"

Just days the Christmas holiday rush, Big Rigs announced its ‘Don’t Steal Our Space’ campaign, asking truckies to send in photos of caravanners "parking in our spots".

‘Every time we see a photo of them doing exactly that, we’re going to call them out,” the publication said.

Big Rigs also published “some damning photos of caravan drivers parked in designated truck stops,” sent in by a long haul truck driver.

The location was the Arrawarra highway rest stop, just north of Coffs Harbour in NSW, which has designed truck stop areas as well as some spots for caravans.

The irate truckie told Big Rigs that caravanners regularly parked overnight in the truck spots at Arrawarra, which was developed with a multi-million dollar government grant as part of the Sapphire to Woolgoolga Pacific Highway upgrade.

“It’s like that all the time, every night and it stresses me out to wonder, ‘Is there going to be a park for me tonight?’ I’ve even seen B-doubles pulled into the on-ramp because there’s nowhere else to sleep,” he said.

Big Rigs’ editor James Graham reckons one solution is to start dishing “fines to those who shouldn’t be there and start treating our long-distance drivers with more respect.”

While he believed most "well-meaning, truck-friendly" caravanners were doing the right thing, there are a minority that “don’t give a damn”.

“For those people, no amount of campaigning from organisations will make a scrap of difference. All they are going to respect are fines, or boom gates to keep them locked out of an area they don’t belong,” he said.

Various campaigns have sprung up recently to try and get the 'share the road' message across, including the government-funded Co-Exist campaign backed by the Caravan Industry Association of Australia.

Others have gone it alone, like outspoken road safety advocate and truckie, Rod Hannifey.

Country singer Lee Kernaghan has also got behind the Truck Friendly program designed to ease on-road tensions between truckies and caravanners on increasingly crowded highways