‘You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.’ – Dr Seuss
Those who have tolerated my rhetoric for a while know I love a good quote, and I will jump at the chance to throw one into my write-ups – I will jump extra high if I get the chance to use a Dr Seuss quote. The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham – the guy was a legend.
The reason for the use of this quote in relation to today’s story is twofold. Firstly, it reflects the path undertaken by me in pursuit of this story. I had an angle on which I was chasing this story, only to find I would end up steering this story in a completely different direction. My original goal was to catch up with a trucking legend in Henry Morrison. I intended to focus this story on Henry, the stunning K200 live bottom eight-wheeler and the push among some officials to steer the future of construction cartage away from tipping units to the live bottom floor concept.
However, when I met the driver of this stunning rig, Henry’s daughter Kristy Lee Morrison, I decided, as Dr Seuss so appropriately surmised, to steer myself in a different direction. Kristy is a young lady that has not always had the option to choose her own path – living a life with serious debilitating health problems, Kristy hasn’t had things her own way. She has faced setback after setback and challenge after challenge but, spurred on by her almost hereditary passion for trucks, she has followed her dream. Through a lot of hard work, she has found herself behind the wheel of one of the coolest tip trucks in the country. That’s the two-fold part of my choice of quote. First, my complete U-bolt on the focus of this story and second, Kristy’s determination to lace up her work boots and decide her own path in the transport industry.
We shall take the opening chapter here to have a look at this stunning truck and the motivation behind it. Henry Morrison has been part of the transport industry for decades. He is as old school connected as you can possibly get. He is the sort of bloke who still does his deals and contracts on a handshake and a beer. His daily drive is a beautifully restored W-model – a project truck that he spent many years restoring with his daughter by his side. The W-model is as ambidextrous as Henry himself, set up to run as either a tractor unit or, with a quick hitch, it becomes a tipper and dog which is Henry’s bread and butter these days.
Focusing in on the tipping and construction arena for a minute, there has been a lot among politicians and industry professionals about the safety issues surrounding tip trucks and rear end tippers in particular. With so much civil construction going on around the ACT and surrounding areas, a lot of research and development went into investigating ways of improving safety. One of those ideas was the preference for live bottom units.
Although the name is fairly self-explanatory, the general overview is the live bottom unit has a unique belt driven floor that allows whatever material is on board to be unloaded out the rear door without any actual tipping involved.
Rear tipping units have been the mainstay of the construction industry since well before any of us were around, and will no doubt carry on being the most popular for a long time yet. However, they do have their drawbacks, particularly when it comes to safety and stability. That is where the popularity of live bottom units is now increasing. Being able to unload regardless of terrain and without the need to factor in overhead hazards, as well as the accuracy of the unloading, has led to many people investing in this new system.
Henry Morrison, who is more than happy with his decades old classic W-model tipper, also foresaw the advantages of having a live bottom unit in his arsenal when it came to sourcing work. Hence in 2021 he went and specced up a brand-new truck. The K200 Kenworth with a Muscat Trailers-built live bottom unit on the back would rock up with all the bells and whistles in early 2024. When Henry specced up the new truck, with just about every box ticked that he could, he wasn’t speccing it up for his daughter to drive, or so we are led to believe. However, it is hard to envision that wasn’t part of the plan when he has been watching and encouraging his daughter’s trucking passion since her first pair of work boots. What a great segue.
As I implied earlier, transport has been part of Kristy’s life since she was just a tiny trucker. Hold on, I need to be more specific here. I shouldn’t use any diminutive descriptions like a tiny trucker, for as you may have noticed if you have already skimmed over the photos, Kristy is still a technically a tiny trucker. I did promise her I would go easy on the short jokes, and I promise to do my best, although she did confess to me that “one of the guys at work the other day was laughing his head off because I climbed out of the truck and walked straight underneath the door – he wanted me to go back and do it again”.
As I was saying, trucking has been an element of Kristy’s life since she was born. Along with her dad having trucks, her grandad had trucks and her uncle as well.
“My dad was on interstate when I was a kid. He was with the same business for around 25 years,” she says.
“It started out as Wilmotts, then became Discount Freight, then Star Track which it still is today.”
When I asked if her dad started as a company driver she laughingly admits, “nah, Dad has always had his own truck – he’s never been a ‘living on wages and being told what to do’ person”.
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Kristy has fond memories of her primary school days when her dad was doing linehaul runs.
“Dad would usually leave about the time I’d finish school so I wouldn’t see him at night,” she says.
“I would only see him in the mornings when he would drop me at school. But then on a Friday after school, Mum would drop me at the depot and I’d jump in with dad to do the Friday run. I caught the love of it from there and would go as often as I could.”
That was the lifestyle of the young Kristy. All through primary school she would spend as much time as she could in the passenger seat of her dad’s trucks.
“I did grow up in a pretty adult world. I was always with my parents, I never really hung out at the mall or stuff,” she admits.
“But I loved it, loved being around the trucks.”
Kristy’s passenger princess days slowed down during high school as her health issues flared up.
“I was often really unwell and couldn’t really do much,” she says.
It also happened that her father was off the road after a serious motorcycle racing accident. When Henry finally got back on the road, he had gotten so accustomed to the home life he opted to forgo the interstate work and go back to his roots.
“Dad bought a blue Louisville truck and dog to do local work,” Kristy says.
“At the same time, Dad had also bought the W-model and was rebuilding that. I would help with that, doing odd jobs as well as documenting the whole rebuild.”
Kirsty may have been out of the passenger seat, but the trucking bug had not diminished. She was loving the restoration role and she was loving the odd trip in the passenger seat of the Louisville. However, as her schooling days were coming to an end, the idea of getting her licence and driving herself was a definite no-go.
“I had no interest in driving back then. I think it was because I thought it wasn’t something I could do,” she says.
“I didn’t think I was capable of it, because I was a girl and back then I didn’t know any women doing it. I didn’t think I was strong enough because of my health issues – all of that I just never considered. I just loved trucks for what they were, I loved going to shows, I loved going with dad. That was all I thought I would have.”
Those health issues, like I mentioned earlier, all trace back to a severe debilitating immune disease. Beginning when she was younger with eczema and allergies, before developing into an even more severe secondary infection, Kristy’s immune issues make life extremely challenging for her. She was often out of action with issues that doctors and specialists still struggle to diagnose to this day. It has been a part of her life that Kristy has learnt to tolerate, but it has also taken a toll on her confidence when it comes to not just trucking, but other aspects of day-to-day living. Thankfully though, there are many others that have seen and experienced Kristy’s passion for our industry and have taken it upon themselves to ignore Kristy’s self-doubt and get her behind the wheel doing what she really loves. Leading that charge is the team from D-Group in Canberra, who are responsible for getting Kristy away from her role as a hairdresser and behind the wheel of her first paid gig in driving a mighty Hino.
“I was out with a girlfriend in town one night and she introduced me to a guy that owned a construction and truck company in Canberra. My girlfriend was busy telling him how much I love trucks and trucking, and I was trying to play it all down,” Kristy says with a laugh.
A couple of days later, she had an interview. She made sure she was there.
“Reluctantly I went along and I made it clear I hadn’t actually applied, but I walked out of there with a job,” she says. “That was D-Group and they have been amazing.”
As I stated earlier, Kristy never really believed she could or would get to drive for a living – she did hold an heavy rigid licence though.
“I only had my licence so I could drive Dad’s truck to shows and stuff,” she says.
“I had only really driven to a couple of shows before I got the job, so although I knew all about trucks and stuff, I really hadn’t driven that much when D-Group offered me a job.
“They were at a point where they were looking to employ more females and happy to train me. They started me in the old Hino, which was a rough old truck but a great one to cut my teeth on.”
For the first few months, Kristy was plonked on the ground at a local go-kart track that was getting done up.
“I was with such a fantastic crew, the boys there took me under their wing and just eased me into it,” she says.
“They chucked me in the Hino, and I’d just be moving dirt around the site, learning the truck. A few weeks in, I remember them asking if I wanted to go to the quarry that day and I was terrified, having to go out on the road with it. But I did, and after that I was away.”
For someone with the skills and passion that Kristy has, but not the confidence, D-Group was the perfect company to partner with.
“I am very grateful that they trusted me to come and work for them, they really changed my life,” she says.
“I thought it was something I’d never do and I couldn’t do. Now I’ve driven, I’ve been in the diggers, I’ve done so much I never thought I would.”
From that first Hino on the go-kart track, Kristy just kept growing with confidence and skills. She soon stepped up into an eight-wheeler T350 which she absolutely loved.
“I had steel bins on the little red rocket, so I got to do a lot of concrete and demolition stuff, as well as garden products, sand and stone,” she says.
“The stone was my favourite jobs as it got me out of town. I spent about two years in that truck, then I really wanted to step up and was looking at the semi-side tippers. D-Group encouraged me get my HC so I could.”
By this stage, Kristy’s infectious bubbly personality had made her a fan favourite at the D-Group site and she decided to parlay that popularity into trying to specify her next truck. She laughs as she recalls the hints and nudges she gave the allocator when he said they’d be replacing a truck and what would she like.
“I said I want an SAR,” she says – words that would make her Kenworth-addicted father proud. Kristy was adamant it had to be a Kenworth SAR – for several weeks the allocator, the mechanic and Kristy were looking, all to no avail. Then one day, Kristy rocked up to work and there’s a Mack Trident sitting at the front gate.
“I was like, oh my gosh, what? This is not good for my image,” Kristy laughs.
“I even rung Dad and said I didn’t know how I was going to go with it, as it was so different. When I left that job, I cried for two days, I miss that truck.”
It wasn’t just the stepping into an unfamiliar truck that Kristy had to deal with – there was also the fact she was moving from an eight-wheeler to a semi side tipper.
“It was really different – the allocator came with me for a day and helped me through. Plus, all the guys at D-Group were like my fathers – they all helped and guided me,” she says.
Sadly, this was where Kristy’s medical past started to catch up with her. Having finally proven to herself that she had all the skills to do the job, and like a true truckie she even admitted she much preferred the manual trucks to the autos, she started to ignore her health in order to enjoy the job she was born to do.
“I was having a few fluid issues with my legs, but I kept going against advice and figuring I’d just push through. I didn’t want to believe it was caused by driving so I ignored it. It didn’t help that I was so short,” she says.
“Most people have a gap from the seat to the back of their knee, but I’m so short mine are jammed up in the back. It was affecting my circulation and with the steroids I’m on for my immune disease, it has ruined my blood vessels. It got to the point where I had to leave because I wasn’t even able to walk.”
It was a heartbreaking decision for Kristy – yet again she commends D-Group for its support.
“They wanted me to have a year off and stay. I can’t speak highly enough of them,” she says.
It was a really tough time for Kristy, and I hate to sound narcissistic, but it turned out to be the best decision for me and my cameras – for while this medical negative put Kristy through a very tough year of recuperation, it would eventually put her behind the wheel of this stunning K200, in a job where she gets more flexibility to look after her health. She gets more of her favoured night work, while it also gets her a big shiny truck and, most importantly, it gets her a truck with a gearstick in it.
“While all the issues were going on, Dad had gone and bought a live bottom truck. I had nothing to do with it, I had no intention of driving it, I didn’t even know how he’d specced it, I just knew he was getting one,” Kristy says.
“Then Dad asked me to go drive for him, I joked with him and said I wasn’t sure if I wanted to work for him.”
With enough ribbing though, and with her health taken into account, Kristy happily took on the new truck and new challenge earlier this year.
“I did feel like I was stepping back a bit – I loved the semi side tipper and wanted more time with it – but this has been great. We do a lot of hot mix stuff and so it is really good. It can be very sporadic, but it’s good.”
Well, it is probably time to wrap this all up. I will still need to send this story off to get the go ahead from Kristy – no doubt she will want to remove most of the stuff I have written as she is an extremely modest young lady, but I will ask her to go easy. Kristy’s story is one of inspiration. She has had everything possible thrown in front of her to prohibit her from getting into the industry she loves, and when you can easily walk underneath a K200 door, then things don’t have to be very high to be a hurdle.
Kristy has epitomised Dr Seuss’s quote: ‘You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.’ Kirsty has chosen to steer herself and her stunning K200 Kenworth forward – well done.
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