First Stop for Share the Road Rig: Katrina Disaster Area

The American Trucking Associations (ATA) and Mack Trucks Inc. have unveiled a new custom-designed truck and trailer that will tour the country as part of the ATA’s “Share the Road” highway safety program.

After a safety demonstration to instruct local drivers on sharing the road with commercial vehicles, the custom truck and trailer’s first stop was the Hurricane Katrina disaster area with critically needed relief supplies from Wal-Mart.
The shipment included 1,176 cases of bottled water delivered to two areas of Mississippi.
Featured at the recent unveiling in Alexandria, Va., were: ATA President and CEO Bill Graves; Mack Trucks Inc. President and CEO Paul Vikner; representatives from the Virginia State Police and AAA Mid-Atlantic; and professional truck drivers with millions of accident-free miles.
“If the Share The Road safety tour results in one life saved in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, or elsewhere in America, then our efforts are more than worth it,” Vikner told reporters at the unveiling. “We’re also very pleased that the truck’s first mission will be providing critically needed relief supplies to the Hurricane Katrina disaster area. It’s a very appropriate start for a vehicle with a life-saving agenda.”
“This new custom truck and trailer will help get the message out that we all have a responsibility to share the road safely,” Graves added, “We are particularly pleased to support Wal-Mart’s relief efforts along the Gulf Coast, and we intend to work with the rest of the trucking industry to do all we can to support the disaster-stricken region.”
Following the unveiling of the new Share the Road truck and trailer, reporters and photographers were given tractor-trailer rides on I-495 and I-95. Professional truck drivers with millions of accident-free miles demonstrated safety measures critical to improving travel on area highways. From the truck driver’s perspective, they viewed safe merging and stopping distances, and learned up close and personal some of the differences between how cars and large trucks operate on the highways.
The demonstration was designed to teach specific skills in order for all motorists to drive safely around other automobiles and around trucks and large commercial vehicles on the highways.
Mack, via its Mack Leasing System, and GE Trailer Services, donated the custom truck and trailer respectively.