I would like to see OOIDA make more of a PR push and as individuals we could start doing simple things like starting Facebook groups that humanize drivers.
Unfortunately social media makes it easy for people to get stuff off their chest then go about their business and forget everything.
You might be onto something here.
The trucking industry seems to always have a PR or safety campaign of one sort or another going on like "Good Stuff, Trucks Bring It" and the "No Zone." While they may have some effect, they are not about people, they are about trucks.
I wonder, what might a campaign about truck drivers might look like? There are the highway hero stories. There is the fact that drug use among truckers is lower than that of the general population. There are the million and multi-million mile accident-free drivers. There are the millions of ordinary Janes and Joes who do what they do every day to delver the goods.
I wonder, how easy would it be for OOIDA and the ATA to get together to develop and promote such a campaing, including sample letters, Facebook posts and other such things that drivers can share with their friends and governemnt officials through social media, in addition to a well-packaged message and bigger story pointed to with QR codes published on trucks. Post-card size versions of the story could be printed and given to truckers to pass out on the road to people they meet.
"Dear Aunt Laura, nephew John, neighbors Fred and Barb (or other names you send the sample email to),
You know I am a truck driver. I'm sharing the attached info graphic with you so you can know more about what we drivers do every day. What a lot of folks believe about trucking simply isn't true any more. With messages like this, we drivers are trying to bring people up to date. I'd really appreciate it if you could share this with some of your friends. We want people to know how to be safe around trucks on the road"
Not every trucker will participate, of course, but those who do could reach millions of non-truckers at little or no cost. With such a campaign being about human-being drivers instead of trucks, it may have more of a public impact and be better suppported by truckers themselves than campaigns of the past.
I don't know this but it is something to think about.
