Mark Farlow has given his life to the transport industry. Recently retired (at least, semi-retired), his career started in the automotive industry as the youngest Mercedes-Benz sales manager in the world at 27, before moving into trucking.
Across his four decades in the industry, he was a passionate advocate for safety, working to make transport and freight a better place for every worker.
He rose to prominence in the Commercial Vehicle Industry Association in the 80s and 90s, first as a member before rising to state president in New South Wales, then eventually national president.
OwnerDriver spoke to the transport stalwart about his career and the lasting changes that he campaigned for to this day.
Passionate advocacy
Mark seemed to be destined for a career in transport, first starting off with the New South Wales Department of Transport, issuing driver’s licences as a public servant.
He was caught between his two loves, sport and automotives. Mark even briefly acted as rugby league side Wests Tigers’ marketing manager, but it was transport where he made his name.
Joining the CVIA was the jumping off point for Mark to start advocating for a safer transport industry, the effects of which we still see today.
“In 1989, 346 people died on Australian roads in heavy vehicle accidents,” he tells OwnerDriver.
“The CVIA had done a lot of work with Blue Circle Southern Cement to get B doubles approved. It would reduce the number of trucks in the road and carry more freight.
“It took a lot of negotiation with the government to get B doubles approved. The original scope was they would go outskirts to outskirts like Somerton in Melbourne to the crossroads in Sydney, or depot to depot.
“You can carry one and a half loads of freight on a B double. Two B doubles replaced three normal semi-trailers, so it gave higher productivity to the industry.
“I went to Canberra to have a meeting with the Minister at the time about getting them approved.
“There’d been a bad truck accident on the weekend that he walked into the room on the Monday morning, threw the Sunday paper down on the table where it was on the front page of the paper. And he said, you fix that, and we’ll talk about B doubles.”
To get B doubles on the road, Mark and his team at the CVIA had to explore new safety avenues.
At the time, all European trucks came equipped with speed limiters. While it was law in Europe, they weren’t turned on in trucks that were operating in Australia.
To avoid on-road incidents where speed was the major contributing factor, he knew they would have to get speed limiters accepted across the Australian transport industry.
“In 1988 we started talking to the government about getting B doubles on the road, and in 1990 it got approved,” Mark says.
“The European trucks like Mercedes-Benz, Scania, Volvo, DAF, already had speed limiters in them. As a trade-off to get B doubles, we said what about speed limiters? I’m very proud of them now.
“In 1990 deaths from heavy vehicle accidents dropped to 260, and then in ‘91 it dropped to 180. If one person dies that’s too many.
“Before that time there were trucks on Australian roads, on the old Hume Highway, and they were geared to do 135km and did. Express freight was part of that. That was a trade-off to get B doubles on the road.”
Being a part of the CVIA and other industry associations helped with the longevity of his transport career, Mark says.
With the industry constantly evolving over his four decades involved in it, it always made sure he stayed informed on what was going on not only in Australia, but across the world.
“Being involved in industry associations helped. I would encourage everyone to be involved in their local industry association. You get the updates,” Mark says.
“I always looked overseas a lot. I subscribed to a couple of overseas industry magazines. And I found England pretty good, because they talk sense, and the same language! And the USA.
“Now I’ve been doing some advising work with the Department of Transport in the US on speed limiters, because they don’t have them. They have them in Canada, in Europe, in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, but they don’t in the US.
“They’re trying to bring it in, and they’re talking about 68 miles an hour, which is about 110kmh. But some over there want to do 75 miles. All the arguments that they’re bringing up over there, the same arguments are brought up again.
“You’ll create mobile roadblocks, you won’t be able to get out of trouble. None of that’s proven. In some ways they’re more legislated, but in other ways less. It’s been interesting dealing with them.”
Roles on the road
Throughout his career, Mark says he’s been on ‘both sides of the fence’, working both as a dealer and in fleet management.
He drove for Toll for five years, carted racehorses interstate for a now defunct company called Livestock Transport, and also drove for Linfox.
Mark says he did think about owning his own truck a couple of times, “but then reality kicked in”.
He spent a good five years as the branch manager of International Trucks Sydney across the ‘90s, getting a good picture of what drivers and fleets wanted to see from their trucks.
“We kept parts and service open 24 hours a day, six days a week to offer a difference,” Mark explains.
“That way customers whose trucks ran during the day, they could get repaired overnight, and trucks that ran overnight could get repaired during the day.
“If it was going to be open for the mechanics, I had to have it open to the general public. There were a number of fleets in Sydney that had their own workshops that worked to have a night. So they could come in and get parts.
“That brought in customers that hadn’t dealt with us before. We had 45 per cent market share in Sydney.
“We started selling trucks to people that we hadn’t sold to before. And I’m a firm believer, the sales department sells the first truck, service and parts department sell the rest.
“The owner driver could work all day, drop his truck in in the afternoon on his way home, have it serviced overnight, and then pick it up five in the morning go back to work.”
Mark’s ‘retirement’ should be taken with a grain of salt – while he is stepping back from some of his roles, he says he’ll still stick around the transport industry.
He still has plenty he wants to see change within the industry that hasn’t yet, which he will continue to advocate for.
“I probably will do some consulting work for transport companies. I’ll probably never fully retire,” Mark laughs.
“The industry is constantly changing, and I think the regulations are getting too much for drivers.
“I firmly believe that truck driving should be an apprenticeship. The driver now has to know so much. It’s not just the road rules. It’s the loading codes, dangerous goods codes.
“For the large companies, they’ve all got training departments that can do all that. Something would change and you could do a course on the computer and update yourself. But for an owner driver or small fleet, that’s impossible.
“How can an owner driver or a small fleet, how can they keep up with the changes in regulation?
“How can they impart that to their drivers?
“How does an owner driver prove they’ve done training?
“I did driver training when I was at Toll for a while, the 10 most misunderstood road rules. I used to teach that, and people would want to argue with me.
“That said, I think I left the industry better than I found it. And I think any job you do where you can walk away saying that is pleasing.”
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