If your truck or trailer uses electronic braking or rollover stability systems, you probably know the name Shane Pendergast.
Working as a service technician for Air Brake Systems in Sydney, he’s normally the first point of call for issues that arise with systems that keep your truck braking safely, and on the road.
Shane earned the prestigious Craig Roseneder Award for Technical and Maintenance Excellence last year, as recognition for the work he’s done both in his service role and educating the industry around EBS and rollover systems.
He was recently at the Livestock and Rural Transporters Association of Victoria’s annual conference in Shepparton, presenting to educate livestock workers and rural truckies on common issues with these systems.
His story began nearly four decades ago in rural New South Wales, where he was first captured by trucks.
“We all started driving very, very young back then,” Shane said at the conference.
“Badly influenced by all the people around with these beautiful trucks, I went out and bought my own truck, which was a 1965 Peterbilt. Adam Gibson, now at NTI dragged me to the Fraser’s yard in Warwick.
“Fraser’s now spends every Friday to Sunday educating everyone on truck safety. I have a regular gig there educating on EBS and rollover systems.
“I started very early in my trade, took over a workshop right at the end of my fourth-year specialising in Caterpillar earthmoving equipment. I had that business for about 10 years before I got a tap on the shoulder.”
This was when Shane was taken under the wing of the late Angus Wickham, encouraged to move out of the workshop and behind the wheel of a truck.
He moved into driving, jumping into a log truck after the popularity of the logging industry began to decline as all the businesses across rural NSW began to shut down.
“Angus Wickham asked if I wanted to drive a log truck,” Shane says.
“That’s all I ever wanted to do. I jumped into the C500. This was a big Kenworth town. It’s a big truck. It had two transmissions, four speed and a 10 speed main Road Ranger. It was very rough.
“It weighed about 14 ton empty. I jumped at the opportunity, but it only lasted me six months. I had to be cut out of the truck after an accident.”
Shane tells his story as a lesson of what the industry could have continued to be had advancements in stability and braking systems not been made.
He continued to work in the industry however, getting back behind the wheel before too long in a mix of roles taking on subcontracting roles and as a part of fleets.
It wouldn’t be too long before he took another big step which led him towards the path he’s on now, learning more on the mechanical side of trucking.
“Still with that boyhood dream, I did go work for myself for another 14 months,” Shane says.
“I got a job with Hardy’s Haulage, who are one of the best transport companies I’ve ever dealt with. I spent seven or eight years driving for Ross and as a tradesman. That’s where I learned all about trucks. Braking, suspension, tyres, road rangers, roads, cities from Brisbane to Geelong. It was one big learning package.
“Cootes were then handed the Shell contract on a platter. All of a sudden there were 15 jobs available. I jumped at the opportunity, and made my wife move to Sydney.
“One of the last loads I did was to Darwin. That was a long way to go back to Sydney.”
Getting the systems right
Shane would go on to work for Cootes for nearly 16 years, as a workshop manager, handling a number of mechanical roles.
He would service the fleet, and carry out regular quality control checks on serviced units.
While the industry was becoming safer across the 2000s, there were still avoidable incidents happening that would require greater safety regulation for Australian trucks.
“The Pebbly Beach rollover was responsible for the implementation of modern day rollover stability control,” Shane says.
“I was in the Port Botany workshop at Cootes. This was a horrific accident. It closed the South Coast Road for nearly a week. The trailer was fitted with standard ABS only.
“That accident could have been avoided if it had been fitted with a rollover stability control system.”
The next step in Shane’s career would see him move, or ‘get poached’, to where he still is now – Air Brake Systems.
For the past eight years, he’s worked there as the NSW sales and service manager, servicing and educating about electronic braking and rollover systems.
“We now provide training, workshops for anyone that wants to learn,” Shane says.
“In 2017 I provided the first training to the New South Wales RMS. Trucks are getting bigger. There’s never been a more important time to have stability control function and braking systems in your trailers.
“I have no issue with high productivity vehicles – we have a lack of drivers, so that’s where we need to be. How lucky are we that we make the best trailers in the world.
“But if you’ve ever driven an A double or a B double that’s not set up correctly, it’s not fun at all. Braking systems need to be harmonised. We need to be doing onset testing.”
The process of testing and diagnosing these systems can be long and painful, but Shane has the benefit of advanced data systems on his side.
He’s got it down to a science now, with the primary issues with truck and trailer brake systems now more diagnosable than ever.
This can be the difference between wheels coming off the ground, or the brakes firing as strongly as they could be.
“We jack up the steer axle, put a high-tech pressure gauge in the booster and I turn the tyre with the palm of my hand,” Shane explains.
“We get a really good guy in the cab, and he goes down as slow as he can on the brake pedal. When I can’t turn the tyre anymore, I snapshot that pressure.
“It’s the same on the dolly. When the signal enters the brake booster, it stops travelling. At 100kmh, you’re travelling 28 metres per second.
“It has to push, rotate and overcome turn springs. Do you reckon all those wheels are contacting at the same pressure together? When the brake signal goes into the A trailer, it goes electronically through the rest of the trailer.”
Not only is it important to get your brake systems aligned correctly for safety, but also for the longevity of your trucks and trailers.
Shane says that equipment would have to be replaced far less often if more attention was paid to these systems.
“If the whole system brakes at the same time, we’d get brake axles and tyre realignments back to 4-500,000km,” he says.
“In 2020, I gave a presentation to the ATA’s ITC committee. The point of that was to share with industry’s important heads that 70 per cent of EBS systems are unloved and turned off.
“I hate to say it, but there was only really one purpose-built EBS vehicle in Australia at that time. I spent thousands of weekends fixing those things, and they just kept coming.
“Those figures have dropped dramatically, but only because of new trailers that are hitting the road. Up to 2010, there were 28,000 EBS trailers on the road. 15,000 have been added to industry year on year since then.
“Now there more than 80,000 in the Australian network.”
With more knowledge out there about the importance of these systems, there are still a number of issues that can be easily avoided.
“Brakes have always been a problem. If you’re not harmonising your braking systems, you’re completely wearing down your brakes,” Shane says.
“If you’re not brake rollover testing, you may never know the deficiencies in your systems.”
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