Arlington, Va. – Today, ATA announced its highway safety program, Share the Road, was awarded a bronze Telly Award for the program’s Share the Road Instructional Video.
“It is an honor to receive an award for promoting highway safety by using sleek graphics, great content and unique design elements, all meant to engage a 21st century audience,” said ATA Chairman Kevin Burch, president of Jet Express Inc. “Being recognized for demonstrating real world situations on the highway speaks to the passion that truck drivers and our Share the Road program have for highway safety.”
The Telly Awards celebrate excellence in the Film and Video industries. Judges evaluate entries based on the distinction of creative work found in the entry and compare each entry to the historical standard that the Telly Awards competition has upheld for 38 years. The video, initially intended to educate drivers on how to share the road safely with large tucks, has since virally swept throughout the highway safety community, being reposted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, state Department of Transportations, state trucking associations and student driving programs throughout North America. Share the Road professional truck drivers also use this video when teaching new drivers what to be aware of and how to operate a vehicle when driving near large trucks.
“It has always been important for the Share the Road program to engage our audience with informative, engaging videos, events, news articles and other mediums,” said ATA Executive Vice President of Industry Affairs and COO Elisabeth Barna.” We are thrilled that this video continues to reach large audiences and spread a strong safety message to motorists throughout North America.”
The Share the Road safety video focused on many key factors, such as recognizing blind spots around large trucks, slowing down, wearing a safety belt, paying extra attention to traffic flows in work zones, maintaining a safe following distance, and eliminating distracted driving, specifically addressing the use of a cell phone while driving to text message or talk. The video also used visualizations and authentic truck drivers to further explain and show the importance of safety on the highway.
The video showcases the Share the Road program’s Mack Pinnacle Sleeper 70-inch high-rise as it maneuvers on highways in Maryland. The video was produced by EFX Media for the Telly Awards. Share the Road professional truck drivers Allen Boyd (Walmart Transportation), Alphonso Lewis (YRC Freight), Don Biggerstaff (ABF Freight) and Ralph Garcia (ABF Freight) appear in the video and demonstrate safe-driving tools to viewers.
“For truck drivers, like me, it’s valuable for the motoring public to understand where the blind spots are, so I’m glad we were able to showcase each of the blind spots and give them tips on how to pass a truck safely,” said Share the Road Professional Truck Driver Allen Boyd of Walmart Transportation. “Without video, it can be hard to explain some of these safety concepts to other drivers, but it’s our job to do our best to promote safety in a way that’s easy for people to understand.”
The Share the Road program tours the country to promote safety on the highways by meeting with policy makers, schools groups, drivers’ education classes, members of the media and community networks.
Share the Road is a highway safety outreach program of the American Trucking Associations that educates all drivers about sharing the roads safely with large trucks. An elite team of professional truck drivers with millions of accident-free miles deliver life-saving messages to millions of motorists annually. The safety program is sponsored by Mack Trucks Inc., and supported by TA-Petro, Pre-Pass, Hyundai Translead, OmniTracs, SmartDrive, Mack Leasing, P.S.I., and Bendix. www.atastr.org. Follow Share the Road on Twitter and Facebook.
American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation’s freight. Follow ATA on Twitter or Facebook. Trucking Moves America Forward