Goodaye all. Home for a visit after two weeks away in the Western Province and I must give a big thank you to Transport SA for getting behind the green reflectors and marking many bays north from Port Augusta, almost to the border. Someone we both know had been marking them as time permitted etc and after a call from James at Big Rigs regarding a story they had printed about green reflectors going up on the Princess Highway last year, I chased them and Transport SA and spoke with a fellow there.
Whilst I haven’t heard back from him directly since then, there are far more up now than before and no one else is silly enough to do it on their own. They are using the correct reflectors, their spacings are good and all we need now is some posters to make other drivers aware of them. I asked a few on the way back and forth and some knew, but others didn’t and both agreed it was a good idea and thanked me for making them aware.
I am currently working with a Victorian road safety group and hope to mark some of the overlap bays for the wire rope on the Hume Highway. I have been in contact with Vicroads since they started putting the stuff up and yes, it may well save some car drivers lives, but it has made it impossible for us in trucks to stop safely on the shoulder for any reason at all.
So I asked for some wider bays, but they only did a few and they weren’t marked in any way (but they did retain and surround the northbound bays already marked), but then I had another discussion when they announced they were doing the whole length of the Hume and I asked for more.
They changed the overlaps in the wire and now we have places that you can pick out a bit ahead in the daytime, but they are virtually invisible at night till you are on them, hence the ongoing, now into 18 months, aim to mark them with green reflectors and it looks as though the only way it will happen, is with the help of this group.
It is I fear much like so many things to do with trucks, people with good intent, do not have a real clue and whilst they aim to help, more often than not, they either don’t or make it worse. In the phone hook up I did with the NTC HVNL review fellow, he truly asked, “Are all these fines for logbooks etc real, the {Police say it is not an issue” and for them, it is simply another ticket, an easy mark and another strike against a driver. “Yes I said, they are real, bullshit, overzealous and the penalties and the level of them, have nothing to do with road safety and that is why I wrote to every Police Commissioner in Australia.
They said fix the law and I thought that this review was supposed to do that and yet here we are, still asking for a fair go and still waiting for it to be fixed and drivers are still getting large penalties for clerical errors. This must be fixed now, not in another three of four years.
Loaded out of Perth, ad some tarp fun, two rolled up inside out, one was a rigid tarp, no shorteners at all and the other only bottom ones, so with two trailers to load and three short length tarps, not my best tarp job, but made it work and got it home.
Truck in for service tomorrow and back to work Tuesday, but hoping to get a few other jobs done, including some further signwriting etc. Till next week, Safe Travelling, Rod Hannifey.
TRUCKRIGHT 