Archive for the ‘Truckie Letters’ Category

When you are engaged in a project with other parties, it is difficult to praise the other party without seeming to be biased or, worse, be suspected of using the opportunity to uplift your own project, however, in this case, the accolades are directed at the other party for achievements that no one can put claim to, but the one person at whom those accolades are directed.

Recently, I had the distinct pleasure of the company of Rod Hannifey, at home, and it was great to get him out of his truck, even just for one night, for a break, while he was in town for the Annual Newcastle Transport Awareness Day.

Getting Rod out of his truck though, does not mean you get the “Truck” out of Rod.  Such is the passion of this man, that to get him out of the driver’s seat, just turns it onto ‘remote’.

By way of introduction to those of us from outside the ‘Industry’, Rod Hannifey, whom you may have heard Lyndal and myself mention, is a truck driver from Dubbo, employed currently by Rod Pilon Transport as a Linehaul Driver. He is married with a family of seven kids and three and a half grandkids.

As a sideline to all this, Rod has worked as a Road Transport and Road Safety Advocate, putting in countless hours in the pursuit of safer roads and safer conditions for drivers. His blue reflector indicators for informal parking bays is but one of Rod’s initiatives that has been adopted by the Qld Authorities and now NSW and Vic are set to follow suit.

While regularly running the Golden Highway from Newcastle to Dubbo, Rod approached and was successful in getting every shire engineer along that road to do a stint in the truck with him to demonstrate the repairs required to bring that road up to a reasonable standard and as a result improved driver comfort and safety.

He has to his credit, several parking bay improvements and is now regarded as the first stop by the roads authorities in three states for his ideas on design and improvements to new and existing facilities.

Rod holds a Graduate Certificate Road Safety Q.U.T., (Queensland University) and is an Assoc., Fellow Australasian College of Road Safety, Committee Member-Driver Liaison of the Australian Road Train Association, 2000 Natroad Professional Driver of the Year, 2001 ATA Professional Driver of the Year, winner of the Queensland Road Safety Award and is an Honorary Member of the Road Knights USA, an organization with similar aims to Rod.

A regular column in Owner Driver Magazine and Caravan World Magazine as well as a regular spot on night radio and frequent live interviews, presentations on his ‘Sharing the Road With Heavy Vehicles Programme’ and taking part in various Truck Audit Trips on major highway routes, form his media interests and never misses a chance to talk up our Industry.

In his spare time from all this, Rod has had a dream to create an Industry Education Truck, designed and built, as a working truck, but also to be able to be put on display and used to promote Road Safety and Driver Awareness.

The last couple of weeks has seen this vision come to fruition after four long, frustrating and arduous years and the Newcastle Awareness Day was her Inaugural Show Day. (On a personal note, I have to say it was literally like sharing the day with a new father).

To give credit to all parties in making this vehicle possible, as I said, Rod is employed by Rod Pilon Transport who has supplied the trailers and allowed Rod, by way of sponsorship, to have them sign written, and also as far as possible to take time out to attend show days and other opportunities to display them.

The prime mover, a smart looking and well presented cab over Kenworth, has been generously made available by Ken and Dot Wilkie from Queensland, who are single truck operators and having brought a newer truck, and have made this one available. I’m sure you agree that this is quite a commendable act for a small business and demonstrates their respect for and confidence in Rod’s efforts and also their own passion for the cause.

As for the messages on the truck, the sides are emblazoned with information regarding Industry initiatives for energy efficiency and safety messages, while on the back doors is a weekly safety message taken from Rod’s ‘Truckies Top Ten Tips’ on safety.

For anyone interested you might look up Rod’s website at www.truckright.myco.com.au.

I am sure that you will join me in congratulating him on a sterlig effort and a great achievement. Really well done, Rod.

Cheers Westy

As regular readers know by now, I often get to expand my horizons to include the Far North Coast, not because that is a preferred arrangement, but sometimes you have to shake the hand that feeds you and it can be mutually beneficial.

 Anyway, last week was one such occasion, (two actually, how good can this ol’ fellow get, two long ones in one week) and one of the side benefits that sometimes comes with venturing up there is that I can often meet up with our lovely ‘Mother Trucker.’  Although only brief, it is great to catch up and run through a few things face to face which is all good by correspondence but with all we have planned, you can cover a lot more ground in person, (besides, she’s nice!)

 I have often said before in regards to the two girls (Heather and Lyndal) I don’t know how they keep going and get through so much but again, they never cease to amaze me with the projects they have on the go.

 Of course, being able to get up the Coast ‘road’ now and then also keeps me in touch with the reality of what this site is all about and this trip was no exception - the following saga being the most memorable of the trip.

 As always I spend a lot of time analyzing things that you see happen - even seemingly insignificant things - and the how the results can change the course of someone’s day.

 After unloading in Grafton I then have to make a dash down to Kempsey to reload before my old mate Bob the forkie loses interest for the day and then get home to Newcastle in time to keep my hours free for the next day. (How do we work all this out?  I haven’t worked that out yet but give me time  …..  in the meantime I just tell them what they want to hear as long as it coincides with their cameras because they already know that bit).

 Anyway, after what was seeming like the first dream run south from Coff’s Harbour, I am overtaken by the obligatory ‘road hazard’ who can’t stand to be behind a truck.  In this case it was an E180 or similar Mercedes which should have no trouble accelerating out of the way of a semi - even empty - which is what he does as soon as he passes the speed sign.  When he passed another lower limit sign he drove right up to it then slapped on the skids to take 20 kph’s off our speed.

 Now you might say this is OK he was obeying the speed limit - however it is not in my opinion a sensible thing to do especially when you have a semi trailer right behind you - and Yes I confess - I was  …………..  tailgating! Shock! Horror!

 Westy!!!  How could you?

 Well it’s easy.  Get behind a driver who cannot maintain a steady speed and has an attention span of about two kilometers who alternates everywhere between 93 and 103kph - 103 only when the truck catches up to you and tries to overtake!  My cruise control is set to 101kph (verified by GPS) so being empty, bad corners, changes of speed limits or bigger hills aside the 460 doesn’t have a lot of trouble maintaining a good steady pace.

 Problem now is we have a stressed out, cantankerous gentleman of European descent who is probably being blinded by the sun’s reflections off the -shall we say - ample gold chains around his neck who is on a mission and the rest of the road users will travel to his wishes.

 By Macksvillehe is gesticulating out of the window apparently trying to warn me of some sort of danger approaching from above but after I demonstrated the illumination capacities, even in daylight, of my high beam and driving lights - mind you - only to inform him that it is dangerous to pull out in front of a semi trailer (even in a 50kph zone) he decided to move back to the curbside and let me pass.

 Now, I thought that was very noble but alas, it was only so he could cut me off again at the end of the overtaking lane at Scott’s head turn off about two kilometres up the road.  This was not a wise thing to do considering that right at the entrance to Warrell Creek 80kph sign, about another two kilometers down the road, the traffic is stopped for road works.

 Bugger! 

 About now is a good time for strategy, and so Mr Wheelbarrowopolous decides offence is the best form of defence and so after taking care to put his glasses on first alights from the car to engage the maniac truck driver behind him.  Unfortunately, the glasses trick did no good.  I was already wearing mine anyway so he was a little bit taken aback when I alighted from my truck before he could get there.

 After some engaging conversation about how I thought I was too good because a drive a “big truck”, and I should take more care (and “don’t worry about the Mercedes, it’s only a piece of s*#t”) I enlightened him on the fact that my truck weighs around twenty tonnes and his car was probably around one and a half and that every time he forced me to slow down and get going again it was costing me extra fuel money, however, if he kept it up, his “little piece of s*#t” may well end up a whole lot smaller “piece of s*#t”.

 To my utter amazement his reply was that he never knew that it was such a problem for truck drivers when cars drive in that manner  …..  he apologized profusely and said he would get out of my way and let me get on with my work and shook my hand.  With the traffic now moving he returned to his car and drove off.

 I am still not quite sure whether I was granted the chance to educate just one oblivious driver or it was just all too much for him and he just wanted to get away but I could only continue on my way, left to wonder, what were the opinions formed by the other motorists who witnessed both driving manner of the car driver and the frustration of the truck driver and then, after some ‘spirited’ conversation, both shake hands and drive away.

 To my mind, it reinforced my view that a large number of road users are just that.., road users, not drivers. They do not know how to share the road and just don’t realize the effect of their actions on other road users.

 There have been a lot of calls lately, for a ‘dob in a car driver’ section on this site.  In my view I believe that would be totally ineffective because who do we dob them into however, again I strongly urge anyone with that view to check out Lyndal’s National Driver Hotline proposal which I believe would achieve more, faster.

 In the mean time, driver education and training must stay our priority in addition to getting the Government to realize their responsibilities regarding safer roads and drivers.

 Cheers Westy

Driver education is the key and we should not stop trying to get the message out there.  How embarrassing would it be for the policy makers and the finance department if people started listening to everyday people who are passionate about road safety (ROAD SAFETY!! ITS NOT A JOKE.)

This site is great and has generated a lot of interest from everyday road users to the trucking fraternity. For more on road safety go to www.oztruckintv.com for interviews with real truckies.  Hear what they have to say about road safety (REDUCE THE SLAUGHTER BY A QUATER)
Mick

Howdy folks.  Yup I’m back to the drawing board once again.  I know it’s been a while between drinks, and let me also say I do apologise.  However, with the ever increasing need to keep up to speed on a few things that occur in our industry sometimes it’s inevitable to be somewhat absent.  Some might also add minded near the end of that, nonetheless I’ve not drifted too far.

As of the 29th September I think we’re pretty much all aware of the new fatigue regulations that were introduced??  I think it’s kind of funny that the new laws are being marketed about driving safer not less.  Yet on Basic Fatigue Management option, if you’re “two up” driving then you can drive for 14 hours straight without the need to take a break.  Driving safer not less??

Anyway I do unfortunately have a nasty story for you all.  One of our drivers quite amazingly survived a crash.   Details are not quite clear so I won’t make too much comment.  All I have to share is that he was air lifted to a Sydney hospital in a pretty bad way.

I was travelling home on Saturday from Sydney and I noticed one of our professional colleagues travelling far too close to a car.  I’m sorry but I just couldn’t help but pass a comment.  I called him up and asked him if he thought he might be following the little one too close.  His reply??  He’s only travelling at 60 km/h.  My reply “hmmmm, yeah…….Still not much of an excuse though eh??”  Silence was his stern reply.  Is it safe do you think to make the assumption that he agreed?

Anyway, on with module 3.  I was out teaching my younger sister in law to drive when it dawned on me.  She had absolutely no idea about vehicle dimensions.  How many people know how wide their car is?  So I thought we should dedicate this module into learning the different types of vehicles on our roads.  All categories.  This includes rigid, semi, b-double, b-triple, and road trains.  But it’s not just about width, it’s about length, weights, and a few technical specs like braking distances.  Of course we must make it perfectly clear that they are general and should be considered ‘ideal’ conditions.

This module you maybe thinking is pretty small eh??  I would tend to agree with you.  Which is why I would like to consider adding in; the introduction to our lovely topic of discussion, road law.  In this second part of this module we aim to identify different signs that are used in Australia.  And seeing that our last topic was OH&S, I thought that this would be a fantastic chaser. 

The signs covered shouldn’t be limited to those such as roundabouts, or traffic lights ahead, but also the definition of “DO NOT OVERTAKE TURNING VEHICLE”  This sign is somewhat surprising to some, just ask those that have had a trailer park across their bonnet.  This module also aims at the understanding that “STOP” actually means you must come to a complete stop, and for very good reason.  This can be linked into our previous module by asking the question that if you rolled through a stop sign could it be considered a breach of your duty of care as a motorist?

I could sit here and list everything, but I think we should open this one up to the public.  My proposal would be to sit through the entire Australian Road Rules publication.   This would take some time and most likely require some assistance in which case this needs to be undertaken in a group setting with the instructor so that maximum exposure for everyone can be achieved.   This study should also encompass the state specific Act that is relevant to the state in which you’re learning in.
I think though the general public would disagree.   However, I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this one.  Bear in mind though when thinking about this one, ask yourself these couple of questions.

1.  What are the few things that I do in everyday driving that I’m not sure if I’m doing the right thing??  Come on be honest about this one.
2.  What are the things that I have learnt after passing my licence that I honestly believe should’ve been  
     taught to me in my learning years?

     Well that’s about enough out of me for this one….

Chris Cartwright
National Finalist Young Australian Truck Driver Competition, 2007.

Okay after many hours of hard yakka around my retirement home that I peacefully enjoy in the bush I have emerged once again to take some time out and read the latest that has been posted here and to my amazement I see that there has been a lot of bash the truckie in here and really its amusing that this has come about and so quickly. 

What I cant get my head around is why are we bashing the tailgating theme like so.  I must be losing the plot here somewhere.  I thought that we was trying to get some form of action in trying to generally educate the so called motorists and pretend drivers in to becoming more aware of safer ways of becoming better drivers and so forth…..

Someone rattle my cage and bring me up to speed please and tell me what’s going on here now……

Some very interesting reading  ….. better than what I read in the papers I might add and wow I an so glad that I don’t drive anymore and especially around Sydney.  From what I can work out most of these reports are based on city driving.  What about country driving?  Don’t think for one minute that it doesn’t happen out there too.  Well sorry folks the bad news is that it does so please never believe that only the city clowns are the only ones that are guilty of this.

I have been seen and partaken in some interesting situations on the vast wide open spaces over the years on the open roads that straddle this vast country and even made several front pages of different papers over some of the stupid things that our so called drivers both trucks and cars have done. 

I also attended 3 Coroners Courts over some of these incidents and the end result of these findings was SPEED INEXPERIENCE FATIGUE and outright stupidity to be blunt….

Not a good thing to attend these Courts as you have to relive these incidents and that truly sticks in ones mind and you never forget things like this….

DRIVER EDUCATION to me is a very important issue and hopefully one day someone will finally realise that there are some huge issues that need to be addressed and sorted out but when will this happen and if at all…….

To all the fellow writers to this site you are all a great bunch and I love to read what you all have to say and yes I know that this is an open site for all but it seems that the real reason here is being lost and I hope that it isn’t.

Lyndal you keep battling and never give up and I am here in support of what you are doing ….

Chris where is part 3 and Nitro David Westy love the comments and yarns keep them coming ….

Where’s Rhonda is she hiding now….and Irene…..?

Cheers everyone I have some huge go slow projects on my plate and will be back again…. Can’t rush things you know

Richie

dob in a truckie, report a truckie, a truckie this and a truckie that. to tell you the truth, i am bloody sick of it all. tell some of these GOOBAS to get open their eyes and take a look at what some of these car drivers are doing. if people would look at some of the positive things that we do, they might not be so keen to do what they are doing. i don’t care if there are some truckies involved with this site or not, i will keep rubbishing this website until something positive is done like adding a dob in a car driver section. wake up to yourselves and realise that there is two sides to every story. you are only getting one of them.
oh yeh, i forgot to mention that i drive trucks and i drive a car and i ride a motorbike. whilst on the bike, i fear the car driver, not the truckie. let’s see if you put this on your site for all to see. i wont get my hopes too high

Fighting for something good in, what sometimes seems like a world of bad, often leaves you looking for the reason that you keep at it.

So it is sometimes on this site when you get streams of uneducated, abusive drivel from the likes of Carl and his ‘alter ego’, Smokey. (I don’t want to get into, yet another verbal stoush with Carl, because, he’s ‘dun more skoolin van me’, and I hate being torn down by academic criticism.)

I often cringe when you hear some comments or even conversations on the radio, even after you decipher the ‘tongue in cheek’ comments and are left wondering how anybody could hope to drive any vehicle, let alone a semi trailer, under the conditions and pressures that we are expected to endure, with any degree of responsibility. Dare to comment on it and you will undoubtedly, after streams of abuse and advice’ be invited to pull up and sort it out.

I read the letters on this site and a constant theme is “I reported it to the police and nothing is done about it.”  Even Lyndal has experienced the very reaction or more accurately, no action, and lack of follow up. Even personal visits to the Police Station evoke little or no response.

We are all aware that the NSW Police are so under staffed that they cannot even hope to respond to even some of the more serious reports and their presence out on the roads is negligible, unless they have done a big escort of wide loads some distance and they then return at intervals so as to space the cars out which gives the impression that there is a high presence on the road.

In contrast to this seeming inaction, last Sunday afternoon I had a visit at home from the local constabulary - the second time they had tried to find me - as I was informed inquiring into the details of an accident that I was involved in unbeknowns to me)and why I refused to stop even after being pursued by the other vehicle.

Briefly the details were, while turning right from Sunnyholt Road, Parklea, which is a multi lane road into Quakers Parkway, another dual lane road, via a dual turning lane, I ‘collided’ with a car. The said vehicle then pursued me for a distance of some 3-4 kilometers before turning off to report the matter to Quakers Hill Police.

My reply to all this is simply, I travel that route almost daily so I am aware of the area.

Being a wide sweeping turn, I use the left lane so as to turn as smoothly as I can and leave whatever room I can for cars on my right hand side, bearing in mind, despite the wide turn, once I start turning, the rear of my trailer is out of sight.

Quakers Parkway is a dual lane divided road with no less than six sets of traffic lights to the point where the other vehicle “gave up the chase’.

Quite simply, my defence to all this is, if the other car had hit the prime mover, I am sure I would have been aware of it, and the prime mover tracks within the turning lane, (bearing in mind, I’m still 10k’s from my first stubby so I can only assume that what has happened was that the other driver has tried to at least follow me through the turn or tried to overtake me through the turn, either way, contrary to the DO NOT OVERTAKE TURNING VEHICLE sign clearly displayed according, to law on the back of my trailer.

Given that this took place, allegedly, at 9:40 pm on a Sunday night, the traffic would be very light, so if a vehicle was flashing his high beam, I am sure that I would have noticed it, in fact, if another vehicle had hit me and not stopped, I would have made damn sure he noticed it.

The driver then pursued me for some 3-4 kilometers on a dual lane road, through five sets of traffic lights and I can tell you I have never had a clear run through those lights in the 4 or 5 years that I have been using that road regularly, and then turned off at the sixth set to report to the Police, and couldn’t get my attention or get in front of me to stop me.

UNBELIEVABLE!

Anyway, this has apparently taken place in early August and now some five weeks later, after, I would estimate, around ten or twelve Police hours, and that’s only if it doesn’t go any further, we find out that the damage sustained is minor scratching and a small dent on the car.

Obviously this driver wants me charged to enable him to claim damages, however, if he knew that it is illegal to overtake a turning truck, there is even a sign on the rear to tell you so. Common sense would tell you that if you do and the truck looks like getting close to you, DON”T stop and hope it will go away, (it will but only after it runs over your car)KEEP MOVING AND TURN A BIT SHARPER, a car is easy to manoeuvre in that situation.

I believe situations like this could be avoided and Police left to do serious Police work, with a higher level of…., wait for it…, Driver Education! Now where have I heard that before!

So the whole point of this weeks ramblings is that, just when you start asking yourself why, reminders like this come along, then you go back to the site and read the posts from the likes of Rhonda, all the Dave’s, Chris, (hell, why did I try to name them all), suffice to say all those that give a damn, not to mention some ‘ugly Sheila from Ballina’ that cared enough to start all this as well as the work being done by the likes of Rod Hannify and Heather Jones, and then you realize why.

Until the States get out of the financial state that they are all in, and that can never happen under our current financial system, and stop relying on massive revenue gained from unconstitutional, illegal and ineffective electronic surveillance techniques, and get serious about road safety, and get back to Police presence and develop a proper system of driving tuition, I guess it is always going to be left up to the likes of all of us.

Sometimes it’s a bit like wetting your self in a wetsuit, it gives you a nice warm feeling, but nobody else notices.

I applaud Lyndal’s initiative with the Hotline as a first step and we have plans to get started on our next project, may I say, with a lot of input from all on the site, and from there we must start taking it to the authorities. I hope we’ve all got patience.  Stay focused.
Cheers Westy

The amount of times I leave the distance in front of my truck open for braking and another vehicle or more pulls sharply in front causing me to break sharply. Luckily I have pulled up in time - so far.

This happens so often I would have to keep that distance to a very minimum to attempt a deterence and still some person will do it.

It isn’t young hoons or any other minority group - all types really but especially young women who are often seen with their mobile in hand texting madly as they do it.

I know there are some cowboy drivers out there and I applaud what you are trying to do but you have to address the other factors as well for I fear they are causing more problems than the average truckie.

Cheers Vaughan

————————-Your Details———————-

———————–Truckie Details———————

Registration Number:            NV46FN (Federal Plates)

Company Insignia:               None (Plain white ‘Western Star’) May be owner operator?

———————–Incident Details——————–

Time:                           Approx 1800 hrs

Date:                           Sunday 24th August

Place of Incident:            

South West Sydney, M5 motorway, northbound, approaching the the Brooks Rd overpass.

Details of Incident:          

On Sunday 24th August, I was travelling northbound on the M5 from Narellan towards Liverpool. I had my wife and 3 children (my 2 daughters plus my youngest daughters friend) in my vehicle. I was in the process of overtaking slower moving traffic, (I was doing approx 105 kph in the right lane), when I was flashed by a faster moving car behind me. That car was being tailgated very closely by a prime mover also flashing its lights.

I estimate that the prime mover would have been doing at least 110 to 115 kmh. The tailgated car found a space in the left lane and slowed, getting out of the way of the speeding prime mover. The prime mover then tailgated me so close, that I lost sight of his (near side) headlight. He then started flashing his lights at me. As there was a continual flow of traffic in the left lane, I couldn’t pull over to the left.

As we approached Brooks Rd, the 2 lanes widened into 3 lanes, which was good, because then he could overtake and not bother us. When he overtook me, he came so close that I fully expected, and even braced myself, for an impact. He didn’t connect.

When his rear drive tyres were level with my front bonnet, he pulled over on to me, causing me to brake violently. Not content with his actions, he pulled in front of me, then applied his brakes hard, nearly causing me to run into his rear end. At this stage he was now moving very slowly, so I went to overtake him to get away from him. As I was overtaking him, he swerved over onto me. He did this 3 times in quick succession, but never connecting. He was leaning out the window, yelling abuse, telling me to pull over, shaking his fists, swearing and carrying on like a lunatic and generally being very aggressive. (I would consider this road rage, and using his vehicle as a weapon).

I asked my wife to call ooo. We asked for and received the police. We described the vehicle, (a white ‘Western Star’, bobtail, ie: no trailer,) and gave them the registration, (Federal number plates, NV46FN).

Here in lies a problem. I phoned the Liverpool Police station on the 28th Aug, to follow up the incident but they couldn’t find any reports. The policeman said that it would basically be a ‘Keep a watch out for this vehicle’ notice.

What I would like to know is, who do I contact now to either get someone to talk to this driver or get this driver off the road.

Just to clarify my position, I’m not ‘anti trucks’ or a ‘truck hater’, In fact, I’m a truck driver myself. I drive B-Doubles and single fuel tankers locally and intrastate.

Our Industry and the general public don’t need lunatics like this terrorising people and /or their families on our roads.

I hope something can be done.

Thank you for your support and your web site. As a truck driver, I urge any motorist, whether you are a motorcyclist, car driver or heavy vehicle operator, to contact this web site and/or the authorities and report any aggressive behaviour by truck drivers. We dont need these cowboys on the road. Our industry suffers enough with bad publicity.

Can you please go to the following web site - http://www.hexhamjunction.com.au.  We have planned for a major rest area for 20 years. See reaction we are getting from RTA Newcastle.  It’s a disgrace.  The RTA is stronger than the politicians who supposedly govern them.  MANY state members I HAVE spoken to say the RTA proposal for the region Hexham to Raymond Terrace Bypass is stupid or similar comments.
Peter