Over the next ten months the hunt is on for highway heroes on New Zealand roads.
Established in 1999 by the New Zealand Police in association with Beaurepaires, NZ Trucking magazine and the NZ Transport Agency, the Beaurepaires’ Highway Heroes awards have been recognising professional truck, coach and bus drivers around the country for their good deeds performed on the job.
“Drivers are nominated by the public throughout the year and a supreme year winner is awarded at the end of the year by a panel of judges,” Jamie Stewart, marketing manager for Beaurepaires who manage the programme said.
“In our experience drivers rarely see themselves as heroes and it takes members of the Police, work colleagues or the public to nominate them. Many of the nominations in the past have related to the aftermath of accidents, but there are also acts of bravery or humanity where drivers have gone out of their way to assist fellow road users and instances where driving skills have avoided catastrophic accidents.
“We encourage anyone who witnesses such an incident to make a nomination. All we require is the name of the driver or a suitable identifier like a truck company and truck number, a description of the event and contact details of the nominator,” he said.
Last year’s 2009 Beaurepaires Highway Hero was Tokoroa logging truck driver Simon Anania, who was presented with a $5,000 cheque for his quick and level thinking upon coming across an accident involving another truck and a motorbike at 1.30 am on his route.
Nominations are now open for the Year 2010 Award. They can be made by anybody who feels there has been an act of genuine benefit to others on the road – as long as the driver is a professional and the act or incident happens while they are “on-the-job”.
In the past, monthly Highway Heroes have included truck driver Jason Lyall saving a colleague from a charging bull in stock yards near Balclutha (October 2005), three bus drivers, Yasser Ahmad, Thomas Roebuck and Ralph Davies, cornering a car being chased by police in Christchurch (October 2007) and countless other incidents where professional drivers have put themselves in danger to save the lives of others on the road.
The Beaurepaires Highway Heroes Award is open to any professional truck, bus or coach driver who performs brave, heroic or humanitarian acts in the course of their work. Heroes can be nominated by anyone through any Beaurepaires store, the local Police station or online at www.highway-heroes.co.nz.
Be on the look out for a hero; there’s a set of car tyres for the nominator of the supreme winner.
marketing hype. It comes with an inbuilt ability to sway the opinion of even the staunchest petrol purist. This unique gift starts with the straight six-cylinder diesel lump wedged under the bonnet.
Shifting all the torque to the rear-wheels is BMW’s 6-speed automatic transmission, which is about as good as you can get from a traditional auto and harnesses the power well. It has an available sports mode that is intuitive in holding lower gears and allows the 335d explosive punch out of corners. If manual changes are your thing there are shifting paddles mounted on the steering wheel or a sequential floor shifter. The engine’s predictable, linear acceleration makes the manual shift options an easy and entertaining choice.
the BMW 335d offers truly rewarding driving dynamics that will stimulate the senses.
other operations.
electronic brake force distribution and emergency brake detection.
Car and SUV road tested Kia’s 2010 Carnival Ltd.
luggage area at the very back. The front seats are wide and flat offering decent comfort and great visibility but little lateral support. Leather comes with the Ltd model as does power adjustment for the driver’s seat and tri-zone air conditioning to keep rear passengers cool. There is no DVD system for the family but an eight-speaker Infinity stereo handles entertainment duties well.
range of small storage options, 12V plugs and cup holders throughout.
there is a liberal dose of body roll. There’s a high feel to its movement and must be handled accordingly. It’s firmly at the van end of the people-mover-scale while a competitor like the Honda Odyssey has much more of a station wagon dynamic but lacks the Carnival’s space.
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