Diary of a Truck Driver

Whilst driving up the coast road the other night, somewhere around Ballina, I happenened to be listening to the local ABC radio.
The topic centred around controlling the speed of ‘P’ plate drivers in light of recent fatal accidents involving the same and the guest speaker was a representative from the NRMA.
I was very disappointed to hear this person say that speed limiters for these drivers would be pointless as they, the drivers, would merely disable them ‘just as truck drivers do’ and this was evident by his being frequently ‘overtaken by trucks doing 120kph’.
Now I dont know where this gentleman lives or how much driving he does but I do know that during my average 4000km each week, in the last 12 months I have only been overtaken once by a truck doing this sort of speed and he was on a down hill grade. I doubt he had a modified limiter as I caught up with him later and he was maintaining a constant 100 – 105kph.
When a person representing the countries peak motoring organisation makes an unsubstantiated claim such as this, many will take it as fact.
This is another example of ignorance and unsolicited bias promolgated by the media and derived from the statements of an obvious ‘truck basher’. That such a person can bring thier own personal bias to the table and profess to be representing the road users is a disgrace to the NRMA. Truck drivers are after all road users too.

Okay, so I’ve been a bit slack and not posted for a while. Nothing much out of the ordinary has happened for a while. Just the usual…

Went over weight on the scales the other day which is unusual with this company (use to happen all the time with the last mob). No big drama, signed the paperwork and carried on.

Thanks go to the road gang that packed up all their gear and dropped a steel plate over the hole they were working on tonight so that I could turn into the street I needed to get to, sorry for slowing your progress. It’s a shame the site safety officer thought I could turn in where I wouldn’t fit but luckily there was an Irish work whgo calmly said “Tis ni a problem, we’d be finished in a jif mate”. God bless the Irish and their calm reasoning.

There has been a great deal of comment in the media about heavy vehicles and there involvement in accidents lately maybe they should play this video during prime time…

FLIR, the pioneers or thermal imaging have released the PathFindIR thermal imaging system for use in vehicles. You can see a video demonstration here