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April 26, 2000 10:34 AM, EDT

The battle to improve trucking’s image continued as Shell Oil Co. launched a new advertising campaign educating motorists on how to share the road with trucks and Amtrak ran a newspaper advertisement portraying truck drivers as dangerous.

	Shell Oil Co. has placed this ad in major magazines and newspapers.

Shell’s television and print ad campaign and accompanying brochure were produced in response to criticism from American Trucking Associations over an 1999 marketing effort portraying trucking in a negative light ("Shell Oil Apologizes for Ads," 8-30, p. 4).

At ATA’s request, Shell pulled the commercial, which depicted a man attempting to change a flat tire on a narrow roadside as a big truck speeds by inches away. The truck blares its horn and scares the man and his wife.

The eight-page brochure describes the blind spots around trucks, known as “No Zones,” where truckers cannot see automobiles closing on them. The brochures, available in both English and Spanish, also offer tips on sharing the roads with motorcycles and farm equipment as well as how to safely navigate highway-rail grade crossings.

For the full story, see the Apr. 24 print edition of Transport Topics. .