The first safety advice for every driver of road vehicles is to take care of yourself properly. In other words, be sure that you have had enough rest and that you have been properly fed and watered. If you take medication, be certain that you have taken it. You ought to also take care of your general degree of fitness by taking frequent exercise. All the above will help you stay alert and responsive but also stave off drowsiness.
A comparable attitude ought to be taken towards your vehicle. This means regular routine maintenance. This frequent routine maintenance will be second nature to professional truck drivers anyway, and it will involve checking the tyres for pressure and wear and checking hoses and leads for damage.
The last thing you would like when you are diving down a motorway is to have a tyre or hose blow out. We have all seen large chunks of rubber on our roads, which are the outcome of such blow-outs. They are dangerous to the truck driver and anyone else driving behind.
It is not normally the professional truck drivers who cause concerns, yet any qualified driver can hire a truck and some drivers get a bit rusty. Once you are behind the wheel of a vehicle, you are responsible for it, so be certain that it is fit for use. If you are picking up a trailer, be sure that all the lights and brakes operate well on that too.
Awareness and alertness are two of the most important safety factors for the divers of any vehicles, and especially so for truck drivers, because they are driving such colossal but also heavy vehicles. These substantial vehicles have their own special concerns that cars do not have.
For example, they may have blind spots, they may be less manouevrable, they might be harder to stop and the load might be perilous. Even if all that is a fact, it is still not usually the professional driver who will cause an accident. Rather it could be the Sunday driver, the adolescent with the stolen vehicle, the drunk driver or even simply someone who has forgotten to take their glasses with them
Truck drivers have to not just not make mistakes, and they have to anticipate but get on the look out for the mistakes of other drivers. This is why it is so vital for the driver to be alert, which means taking supervision of the driver's health but fitness.
Another manner of taking care of the driver is to always wear your safety belt. If there is an accident, the truck diver is almost sure to be the most professional driver around and therefore the most helpful person around until the police and safety / rescue personnel get there. There ought to also be a fire extinguisher in the cab, whether the load is dangerous of not.
The weather conditions can vary a great deal for long distance truck drivers, so it is a sensible thing to be aware of the local conditions and to have clothing fitting for it. After all, you will have to get out of the cab at some time. For the same reasons, it is a good thing to have an efficient heater and air conditioner.
A hands-free mobile phone is an indispensable part of anybody's safety equipment, and a conscientious truck driver should also report any perilous incidents to the police - things like substantial road kill, debris, reckless drivers and accidents.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with Uvex Safety Glasses. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Safety Glasses Bifocal
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