Canadian drivers say more training is needed to share the road with large trucks

Many Canadian drivers do not believe training programs for passenger vehicles provide adequate education about sharing the road with large trucks, according to the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF).
The number of injury crashes involving large trucks increased substantially between 2001 and 2005, with only a slight decrease in 2006, the TIRF says.
In the Road Safety Monitor, an annual public opinion poll developed and conducted by TIRF, 62.4% of 1,200 respondents surveyed in September and October 2009 did not believe training is adequate.
A further 20.2% of did not know whether training is adequate or not.
“Perhaps not surprisingly, a majority of the respondents (60.2%) supported requirements to test drivers of passenger cars to see if they know how to safely share the road with large trucks before obtaining a driver’s licence,” Ward Vanlaar, vice president of research at TIRF, said in a release.
About two-thirds of respondents (64.2%) believed they knew the minimum distance a driver should leave between their vehicle and a large truck.
Almost three-quarters (77.2%) of respondents said they knew where the truck driver’s blind spots are.
“What was unexpected was that a reasonably large number of Canadians admit they actually do not know about these safe driving practices (35.8% and 22.8% respectively),” Vanlaar said.
“In light of these findings, perhaps it should not be surprising that so many Canadians believe driver training for sharing the road with large trucks is inadequate.”