Bayside Transport Action Group lobbying to get trucks off Beach Rd

UPDATE: Truckies have hit back at a lobby group wanting the vehicles banned on Beach Rd, saying its campaign is “misleading”.

Penny Madden was hit by a motorbike due to a truck blocking vision on Beach Rd, Albert Park. She supports the Bayside transport action group truck ban. Dog called Doc. Picture: Susan Windmiller

Victorian Transport Association CEO Peter Anderson has responded to a lobby group wanting a total truck ban on Beach Rd, calling the campaign “misleading” and “inflammatory”.

The Bayside Transport Action Group (BTAG) wants “a complete and immediate 24/7 ban on heavy vehicles using Beach Rd and has dropped more than 100,000 graphic “Truck Off!” bumper stickers in letterboxes from Port Melbourne to Mordialloc.

The confronting decals feature a cyclist being decapitated and a pregnant women run down by an all-black truck with a “REAPER” numberplate.

And they have produced a 50-second video ‘3 Ways to die’.

In the sights are trucks who use Beach Rd to avoid tollways, with local pick-up and delivery trucks excused from the proposed ban.

But Mr Anderson said the campaign did nothing fix the problem.

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“Bayside Transport Action Group’s use of misleading imagery and inflammatory language in its campaign for even more Beach Road truck bans is an affront against thousands of responsible, law-abiding drivers trying to earn a living,” Mr Anderson said.

He urged BTAG to “follow the model of the Maribyrnong Truck Action Group, who the VTA has a history of working constructively with” rather than “than stoke hatred for an industry that directly and indirectly employs thousands, and contributes millions to our state and national economies”.

“Telling a transport worker to Truck Off with imagery that unfairly maligns them as being careless and irresponsible is divisive and does nothing to encourage better harmony and road safety,” he said.

“The VTA is very willing to work with councils and others to reach an agreeable position, however we need to avoid conditioning people to simply say “ban them” any time they have an issue with trucks, because this does nothing to solve the problem.”

A BTAG spokesman said the group was “gravely concerned about the health and safety of the beach communities”.

BTAG supporter and ­Albert Park resident Penny Madden said she backed a 24/7 truck ban.

Ms Madden said she was lucky to escape serious injury recently after a truck obscured her vision while she was crossing Beach Rd at Beaconsfield Pde, and she was hit by a motorbike.

VicRoads chief executive John Merritt told the Leader VicRoads were working with Port Phillip Council and the Victorian Transport Association to “review the way trucks use Beach Rd and whether the current curfews are appropriate”.