Goodaye all, well another year drawing to a close and the problems seem to be nearly insurmountable in some ways.
Too many people have got in without enough training and or proper testing and not only do we have incidents and crashes and injuries and deaths, we have the public looking at us worse than I can recall for many years.
The gate was left open and the horse has well and truly bolted and unless the government goes down the US path and recalls all the licenses of those who slipped through (and how do you really do that now), we are stuck with the situation we are in now.
Who really knows how many of those who should not have been given a license, however it was done, I still have no clue? Let’s hope the majority will learn from their mistakes and that it does not cost too many lives and that in the end, with the current path of hopefully an apprenticeship scheme and changes to the licensing process, that will eliminate any getting through who should not. Hopefully it means we will see change for safety and perhaps some sanity in the next couple of years.
The biggest hurdle I see to that is both the lack of assimilation – many of the new overseas drivers have and, yes, we are somewhat to blame for the way some are treated, but when the few of them who simply do not care it seems about anyone else’s life and continue to do such stupid and dangerous things on the roads – no wonder we have such a problem with that attitude!
Then there are the roads. I have some real concerns here. I know the constraints and the excuses and, as I have said already too many times with little or no take up or response, until we get better value for the money spent and the work done, we will have every council, local and state government pleading poor, saying we will have to pay more to have our workplace safe.
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Of course it is only our lives, not important to many if any others, so stop whinging and just get on with delivering everything to everyone, so they can all have a nice life, while we risk ours daily with the idiots on our roads who have never been taught to share them with us and see us as simply someone in their way.
I have now rang VicRoads four times about one thing, the drop off at the Creightons Creek bridge southbound and south of Euroa. It is only the Hume with just a few trucks on it, so why bother fixing it? Someone else has even painted a name there? I do not ring about every small divot – there would not be enough time, but funnily enough, VicRoads must think the magic road repair fairy will finally come and fix this savage drop, hopefully before someone breaks something and crashes or dies!
Then there is the culvert about 40km north of Dubbo on the Newell. I rang and have listed it before as well and got a call from a road inspector. He was actually standing at the site, having even waited for me to return his call while I was loading and yes, he had watched some trucks go over it, yes it was bad, no the heavy patching crew were not due anywhere near there for some months, but he agreed it was a problem, he would escalate the repair and would push for urgent repair by the minor crew who should be able to improve it with some work. Oh good, thanks for the call and the effort, he even stood up the guide post (with the three green reflectors on it) that had been hit by a truck who had swerved off the road, most likely from the impact from the failed culvert.
So a couple of months on, nothing has changed, it is still there destroying truck and trailer parts, loads and the like as the few trucks on the Newell hit it every hour. So I rang the inspector and this is where I have to be careful.
He told me, “they are not going to fix it, unless they get more complaints”, and I said, “well here is one more, how many do they need?” and this may well be the point where I get into a lot of trouble, as his next comment was, “they won’t fix it until someone dies there!”. Now this may be his personal view and when it gets back to those who I will now be emailing, not only will I suggest this is not good enough, but that should I hear of such an incident, I will be making sure those involved know it had been reported and nothing was done!
Some in road authorities may have even heard of ‘duty of care’ and the legal ramifications of it. Let’s see! Some years ago, a driver called me up and asked why I did not call those in authority all the names under the sun like some other industry columnists did? I explained that if I called him a dickhead, for example, would he be then likely to help me later, if not bag me out to others and then make my life even harder than it needs to be.
There were a few moments where it seems he did think on this, but I then explained, “do you really think anyone will fix a road, build a rest area or even listen to me, after I abuse them?”, and of course he then responded, “probably not”. So while I may seem to many of you to be soft on some things, I will get nothing done and quite possibly much less, if I simply abuse people in print or on the radio. What do you think?
So please, have a ‘trucking’ good Christmas, All the best for the New Year and I will keep trying, but what will you do, watch or act? Safe travelling, Rod Hannifey.
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