Four businesses from Wellington and Mumbil are among 95 food outlets across Western NSW to put their support behind a 2018 road safety campaign.
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Cookies Café, Food 2 Go and Pacific Sea Foods from Wellington, along with Griffo’s Burrendong Hotel at Mumbil will participate in the ‘Free Cuppa for the Driver’ scheme in 2018.
Drivers who have travelled more than 100 kilometres from the address on their drivers licence are eligible for a free cup of tea or coffee from those participating businesses.
This scheme will see over 23 local council areas working together to implement the successful and multi-award winning ‘Free Cuppa for the Driver’ scheme in a bid to reduce tired drivers and fatigue related crashes on roads in Western NSW.
Cookies Cafe owner, Marcus Cooke, said as a former truck driver he is a strong supporter of the initiative.
“Monika and I have a great interest in road safety,” he said.
“With the road toll the way it is recently with a few fatalities around, we’re hoping to reduce that figure and save some lives.”
Dubbo Regional Council’s Road Safety Officer, Jayne Bleechmore said that the second biggest killer on NSW roads is from drivers who are tired.
“When you fall asleep behind the wheel you aren’t able to react by slowing down and moving out of the way from hazards ahead, which means the crash is more likely to be fatal,” Ms Bleechmore said.
How ‘Free Cuppa for the Driver’ works is the Local Government Road Safety program provides participating businesses with takeaway cups, banners and all other resources required, and the free cuppa is directly provided by participating businesses.
“If it wasn’t for participating businesses supplying the ‘free cuppa’, then this scheme wouldn’t be possible and I would like to thank the 13 enthusiastic businesses in Dubbo, Eumungerie, Mumbil and Wellington who are taking part in next year’s scheme,” said Ms Bleechmore.
The ‘Free Cuppa for the Driver’ scheme will officially launch in Orange on March 1, 2018 and will continue to offer free coffee and teas until May 31, 2018.
Next year the ‘Free Cuppa’ takeaway cups will be biodegradable and have one size to fit all lids, to minimise the impact this scheme has on the environment.
The ‘Free Cuppa’ website, freecuppa.com.au, has also been recently established to allow drivers to search for the nearest participating business as well as find useful information on the scheme. There is also an active Facebook page that everyone is encouraged to like to keep up to date on the scheme and it’s participating businesses.
Since the scheme’s inception in 2010, over 6,700 free cuppas have been provided to eligible drivers and over 850,000 Facebook reaches have been made.
This scheme compliments the long established Driver Reviver program, which is a national initiative targeting driver fatigue and the Driver Reviver sites will be offering free cuppas to travellers over the 2017/2018 Christmas school holiday period. To find out locations and opening times please visit www.tollgroup.com/driverreviver.
