Rod Hannifey named as 2020 Tony McGrane award winner

It's been almost 20 years since Mr Hannifey started campaigning on behalf of truck drivers like himself.

"I was coming out of Narrabri one morning - I'd slept there during the night - I saw one car behind me and I thought 'oh yeah, that's okay'. I came around a bit of a corner and there was a car beside me that wasn't the one behind me, it had been behind them and there was a B-double about 100 feet away," Mr Hannifey said.

"Both of us went onto the dirt to miss the car. And there were two young children sitting in the back, I saw them clear as day."

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But the dangerous driving continued.

"About five hours later I was coming down onto a narrow bridge and there was a fairly big Ford ute coming the other way. I looked at that and thought 'surely he'll wait'. I gave him a flash to say 'mate, release your foot and give me a couple of seconds to get off the bridge'.

"Nope, he kept coming and I missed him by a centimetre and the bridge by a centimetre."

Shaken up, Mr Hannifey sat down to have his lunch and thought about what he could do to change it.

"I've been involved ever since and that's coming up 20 years," he said.

On Tuesday night, the truck driver was named as the 2020 Tony McGrane award recipient at the Dubbo Regional Council Dubbo Day awards.

It recognises someone who has gone above and beyond in their line of work.

Mr Hennifey is a regular contributor to road safety inquiries and frequently makes submissions to governments of all levels on important transport issues.

He has worked with caravaners to promote safe travelling alongside trucks and is also known for his video series of Truckies' Top 10 Tips, which were identified based on a survey he conducted identifying drivers' safety concerns.

But Mr Hennifey said it was his idea of using green reflector markings for informal truck bays that he's most proud of.

He gets calls every couple of months from truckies about the initiative.

"[They] call me up and say 'you've saved my life'," Mr Hannifey said.

The advocate said road safety was his "hobby and passion". It's also the way he looks after his mental health during long stretches on the road.

"I honestly believe it's kept me sane. I look for things to get fixed and I think about who I can annoy to get a rest area done or what I can do to improve things, instead of sitting here thinking 'woe is me I should be home with my family'," Mr Hennifey said.

If just one life is changed, the award winner said all of his efforts would be worth it.

"I do it because I know there's value," Mr Hennifey said.

"When I started I honestly gave serious thought to what effort I should put in and at the time I said 'if I can save one life, if I can get one bit of road fixed so someone doesn't hit a bump and careen into a truck, if I can get a rest area built so a bloke has somewhere decent to sleep or if I can get one person to understand trucks and have a little bit more empathy for what we do and save one life, than everything after that is a bonus'.

"That's still the motto I do it by."

Mr Hannifey said he hoped the award lead to recognition, not for himself but the trucking industry.

He thanked Rod Pillon Transport for allowing him to get his safety messages out there, as well as his family who gave up "a hell of a lot" for him.

"If I don't do it an all the other blokes that are out there don't do it, then you don't have any food or fuel or parts for your car or anything else."