RAFFERTY’S RULES – The trucking insanity on our roads

This morning I received notice of an ad for a two - up team running east – west (Multi Combination). It was / is, a sweet number and both drivers will be very well paid (unusual for two - up). I’m not keen on two - up, but I do have a mate who I’d trust with my life. I sent the ad to him, but in reality, running east – west is just too dangerous at the moment, Russian Roulette with three bullets in the chamber.

On any stretch of the road from Perth to Ceduna (and beyond), it’s a constant stream of road trains and B Doubles passing on double white lines and aggressively tailgating any vehicle deemed to be impending their path. There are no rules anymore.

Certainly there have always been a small percentage of agro dangerous drivers, but the situation now is catastrophic. Possibly a result of very different driving cultures imported from other countries, but very definitely a result of a lack of experience and training.

Somehow, we have allowed the various State licencing departments to hand out MC (Multi Combination) licences to people with little if any experience and the severe shortage of experienced drivers has seen transport companies take on these people. Indeed the increasing use of automatic prime movers is directly related to the lack of drivers who know how to operate a crash box (18sp Road Ranger).

Who the hell thinks driving a rental Toyota Camry for Uber, or at best a van, or tray top, is a short step to operating a three trailer road train on narrow public roads? Obviously politicians do and so do the various state transport departments.

Less than two weeks after a cyclist was run over on the Nullarbor by a road train - the charges now being laid against that driver illustrate everything in this article - we’ve now had an even more shocking incident – I won’t refer to it as an accident because it wasn’t. I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate, but people (Chain of Responsibility) are deliberately placing other road users in shocking danger, by allowing drivers to be in control of multi combination vehicles they do not have the capability or experience to operate long distance.

Three men died. One of them, Nevile ‘Slim’ Mugridge, was 77 and had been driving professionally for in excess of fifty years! And from the looks and positioning of the wrecks, he would have know he was gone. There is, by the way, a Go Fund Me page to help his widow (Delphene) and there is now also a Go Fund Me page for one of the other drivers, who’d only recently been married.

Where are the politicians? What have they said? None of them seem to give a flying f#$%! What will it take now - a B double to wipe out a school bus? Or as another truckie has said elsewhere, “Wait till a politician’s spouse gets killed! Then something will happen!”? There have, by the way, been two more reported roll-overs since Thursday morning’s tragedy (three days ago)

Surely this insanity on our roads has to be stopped. As professional drivers, we all know training, experience and safety have gone out the window and the blame lies squarely at the feet of the politicians, bureaucrats, transport companies and businesses sending goods. In many ways, it isn’t the fault of these drivers, their often supremely over - confident, to the point of arrogance attitude, is based on the reality they don't know any better, somebody has given them the role and they're rightly proud - the boss has said "You're good to go." Add to that a blatant disregard for rules and an unguided lethal weapon has been unleashed on our roads.

Where are the unions? Well the TWU, with membership numbers woefully small, has been actively pursuing these drivers as members, so they’re not going to kick up a fuss. Where are the State and Federal Governments? Where are the Police - surely, like us, the cops know the problem is catastrophic. Heavy vehicle roll-overs and accidents have become so common place, media outlets don’t even report them unless somebody dies. As for the transport companies, one can only assume they’ve costed in the accident damage bill and found it balances out in favour of the often cheaper wages and ability to keep the wheels moving.

This diabolical situation is farcical when one considers the rigmarole of paperwork and inductions and medicals, plus truck and log book inspections, not to mention the good old ‘Flash for Cash’ speed cameras so beloved of state governments. How many poor sad souls were hiding in their white vans manning speed cameras across Australia that morning? I’m prepared to bet there were a lot more than police out on the same roads.

Transport companies are going to say, correctly, that they can’t get experienced operators, they have to go with less experienced drivers, yet it’s those same drivers causing many of us to refuse to drive on routes such as the Eyre Highway.

How stupid is the current Federal government? Experienced drivers can’t get into the country, the fools making immigration decisions have totally ignored pleas from the transport industry. The concentration is on doctors, nurses and teachers, great, we desperately need them, but who transports everything across this wide, brown land? Truckies carry this country! Not the stock broker, or the real estate agent, the public servant, or the politicians! No, I’m not ignoring the vital role trains play, but realistically, there are trucks at either end of the line.

There is only one way to go now – well, two – we could let the carnage and insanity carry on.

Training, proper facilities and regulation in terms of conditions and rates. The Australian economy is based on screwing transport operators, owners and drivers, financially, physically and psychologically. Chain of Responsibility laws and regulations are supposed to have dealt with those issues, but they’ve failed from the top down.

A heavy vehicle operator is supposed to stop every five hours for a twenty minute break – where? Try that in the city and suburbs! Yes, out in the bush, there are parking bays, but inevitably no facilities – need to go to the toilet? Wander off into the bush. Where’s the hygiene, the health and safety? Then there’s two-up driving. Anybody who says the off-duty driver is getting proper rest / sound sleep, is lying.

Let’s say the drivers are doing a six hour changeover. At best the so-called resting driver is going to get two hours uninterrupted sleep. It’s far, far safer to have solo drivers, with a quiet Ice Pack cooling the sleeper cab, he or she will get at least five perhaps even six hours genuine sleep. But who cares? Politicians certainly don’t and they’re the ones with the power to make the legal changes and order facilities built. Big business doesn’t and most certainly, the consumer doesn’t. In fact he or she . would be very annoyed if things became more expensive if transport companies and drivers were properly reimbursed, provided with best practice facilities and taught safe driving practices.

I haven’t even got to the state of the roads. Just taking West Australia’s portion of the Great Eastern Hwy, the goat track that doubles as our major east west route, has a section from Southern Cross almost through to Coolgardie that sees uncovered quad road trains, blowing iron ore dust over other vehicles, sharing the narrow broken-edged road with all other road users. It’s only the skill and politeness of drivers, calling each other up and slowing down etc, that prevents major accidents. It is madness, but symptomatic of the obvious disinterest State and Federal governments have in providing a safe environment for heavy vehicle drivers (and other road users) to work in.

As I'm sure can be readily understood, the problems are multi-faceted, there’s not just one reason for the dangerous chaos. As a society, we have to make up our minds whether we continue to accept the carnage and abuse of heavy vehicle drivers, or we step up to the plate and say “STOP! We want our goods delivered safely and ethically.”

The author last drive across the Eyre Highway, bringing a Kenworth prime mover from Melbourne to Perth in late December 2023.

Greg Ross