Award presentation - Nat Highways and Dawsonroup

Dawsongroup truck and trailer has won an award for its exceptional contribution to road safety through National Highways’ Operation Tramline.

Launched in 2015, the initiative monitors and changes driver behaviour to reduce the unacceptable numbers of road deaths and serious injuries.

Dawsongroup provides three highly specified, unmarked, white tractor units - each with elevated cabs, disabled speed limiters, a 360-degree high-definition enforcement camera system and a jockey passenger seat.

National Highways loans the trucks to police forces across England to help tackle illegal and unsafe driving. They allow a bird’s eye view - seeing into vehicles and filming offences.

In Operation Tramline’s first six years, 30,380 drivers were stopped, and 33,254 offences were detected. The most common (9,962) was for not wearing a seat belt - a factor in 25% of fatalities on England’s main roads. 8,368 were for using a mobile phone and 1,539 for speeding.

Other offences included careless driving, drink/drug driving and the lack of vehicle tax or insurance.

Each year, 40% of the offences detected are committed in HGVs; 30% in vans; and 30% in cars.

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National Highways’ Mark Cartwright (Head of CV Incident Protection Team) even recalls one truck driver with pet parrots flying around in his cab, while another was eating a fully-plated lasagne with a knife and fork.

The National Highways Awards recognise successful partnerships and the award, for exceptional supplier contribution, was presented to Scott Neill (Dawsongroup General Manager – Contracts).

Scott said: “We’re proud to receive this award and thank all those involved in Operation Tramline, from the National Highways team and the frontline police officers to the engineers and support teams, who help make our roads that bit safer every day.”

Mark Cartwright added: “The aim of Operation Tramline is to improve the driving behaviour of all types of motorist and prevent harm occurring on our roads.

“We work closely with both Dawsongroup truck and trailer and police forces across the country to make our roads as safe as possible. Through Operation Tramline we are encouraging people to think about their driving and to adopt safer behaviours.

“While the small minority of drivers who continue to put themselves and others at risk should be aware that they can be spotted by officers using these unmarked cabs.”

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