Letters to the Editor – Livestock on our Roads, Greenmount Hill access for 36.5 metre RAV vehicles

Dear Editor, T his issue of cattle being on or near the road has been an ongoing problem for at least the last 30 plus years that I’ve been involved with heavy transport.

It matters not whether the responsibility for safe roads rests with the farmers, pastoralists, local government, Main Roads, the state government, the federal government or the Queen herself. The road is our place of work and government departments of every kind have failed to provide a safe place of work and yet demand that we comply with their made-up, one-size-fits-all, fatigue management crap, endless compliance matters, countless reams of other rules and regulations and pay through the nose for all manner of government-imposed fines, fees, levies, duties, taxes, charges and other forms of cleverly disguised theft; theft by people who sit in a plush office all day and wouldn’t know a truck from a tractor and have absolutely no comprehension of the hazards that truckies and the general public face every day on the open roads throughout the State.

I would argue that in consideration of the above paragraph, we in the transport industry especially, would be deemed as being ‘employees of the state’ because of all those financial, regulatory and other obligations that we are subject to and of which the general public is not. Having established that I would also argue that the aforementioned government departments, therefore, must also be subject to the following legislation that ‘they’ wrote and enforce upon us:

The “Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984”, Part III, Division 2, Section 19, sub-section 1 and 1(a) states:

19.Duties of employers (1) An employer shall, so far as is practicable, provide and maintain a working environment in which the employees of the employer (the employees) are not exposed to hazards

WATM • March 2020 and in particular, but without limiting the generality of the foregoing, an employer shall —

(a) provide and maintain workplaces, plant, and systems of work such that, so far as is practicable, the employees are not exposed to hazards; and I would hasten to add that this protection must also apply to the general public; whether they are tourists, foreigners, mine workers, local residents, police officers, government officials or any other road user.

It appears that the state government, in particular, is in breach of its own Act and if this is correct, then road users who have incurred, loss, damage or injury may have adequate prima facie evidence with which to charge the state government with alleged offenses including but not limited to, gross negligence, professional misconduct, non-feasance, misfeasance and misappropriation of funds. I don’t know if such a case has been tried yet, but I think this may have some legs, especially in a class action.

I well appreciate that wild animals such as emus and kangaroos cannot be fully controlled on a practical level; they are an unavoidable consequence of living in Australia. Whilst they are still a hazard, especially to light vehicles, they do not present the extreme level of danger that large and heavy animals pose, such as cattle, horses and camels, however, when a road is built and if it happens to pass through or alongside someone’s property, that road should be adequately fenced and gated or if further access is required for the movement of livestock and other similar (large) grazing animals, then an underpass should be installed for those properties, such as the ones built in the Bindoon/New Norcia area.

The vast majority of these larger animals are owned by or are the responsibility of someone, therefore practical and appropriate options must be provided to ensure those animals are not a risk or a hazard to the motoring public and that those animals are not at risk of injury or death through unplanned and unmanaged interaction with traffic.

We, the people, the motoring public and especially those of us in the transport industry have paid many times over for well constructed and adequate roads and road systems through fines, registration fees, transfer fees, GST, state and federal taxes and the like yet this clear, real and present danger has never been appropriately addressed by those who are responsible for ensuring a safe environment for all road users. If there was a straying cow or horse on Kwinana or Mitchell Freeway you can bet that it would be rounded up and removed in no time at all because of the imminent danger to itself and the public. Why isn’t this policy also applicable in regional areas? Aren’t the regional people good enough or important enough?

We, the people don’t care anymore who is responsible, just build the roads properly the first time and make them safe and free of hazards as far as is reasonably practicable and stop with the rhetoric, buck-passing, hand-balling and other gutless means of avoiding the issues.

To the Western Australian Government at all levels, we, the people have paid for adequate, safe and practical roads and associated infrastructure and as you are the servants of ‘the people’ and as I am one of ‘the people’, it is my will and my wish that you fix this problem of unrestrained large animals straying on to our roads. Fix it once, fix it properly, fix it immediately and without any more pathetic excuses. Garth Stockden Independent Contractor

From the Editor: Hi Garth, I have sent your letter to the WA Local Government and will publish their response when I receive it. Best Karen

Dear Editor, GREENMOUNT HILL ACCESS FOR 36.5-METRE RAV VEHICLES O n the face of it, the public would be against allowing access for 36.5-metre road trains to traverse Greenmount Hill. However, a simple analysis of the benefits to all stakeholders puts it in perspective.

The arguments against this access just do not stack up to scrutiny from even a non-industry aware person, with the smallest amount of understanding.

The situation as it stands allows B Double and 27.5-metre pocket road train combinations with 8-wheeled prime mover and tri-axle converter dolly access at RAV class 4.A total of 87.5 ton nonconcessional or 98 ton concessional, to traverse Greenmount Hill.

However, a RAV Class 5 at 80 ton cannot. The argument that weight and stopping power is the issue is null and void. So, the governing factor here is the extra nine metres of length. Engineer reports have confirmed that the great Northern Highway section at Greenmount Hill is constructed to cater for the extended length. Independent swept path reports confirm there are no issues considering the swept path of a B double requires more room than 35.5-metre road trains.

Currently, all 36.5-metre combinations are assembled and disassembled at the Northam road train assembly point, a little over one hour from the Great Eastern and Roe Highway intersection. A second prime mover is then required to hook onto the second trailer and traverse the route to Northam. Three runs for inbound and three runs for outbound a total of six movements instead of just two with a 36.5-metre road train. This can be done with a dog trailer runner or alternatively with the one prime Mover and driver running both trailers back and forward. Sounds fantastic to the uninitiated layperson, until you start pulling this all apart.

This process requires three times more truck movements to achieve the same outcome that one truck movement would. The negative impacts are increased numbers of vehicles on the road. Up to 70% increased fuel usage, carbon output by up to 50%, driver fatigue incalculable, cost to the industry which is passed onto the community, wear and tear on the road system, increased noise pollution, three times the chance of an accident or incident and the list goes on…

Further issues arise when analysing the impact on the east-west trade, especially to the primary producer and produce merchants. One of the reasons for government and departmental push back is that they do not want road transport to be given an economic advantage over the east-west rail service. This argument would hold validity if the rail service and road service were competing for the same customers, but this belief at best is a myth. The freight that is consigned by road would never be consigned to rail and the same applies in reverse. An appreciation of an economic advantage would be the sheer volume that the train can carry would render the road transport uncompetitive by many thousands of dollars per load if both mediums of the transport service were vying for the same customers.

The rail service pursues customers who send or receive Consignments with volume, such as full loads, they also emphasise a certain degree of delivery schedule flexibility. Added to this, rail customers are obliged to maintain a certain monetary spend per annum with a rail service account.

The road service pursues customers whose livelihood depends on their temperature-sensitive, short shelf life fresh produce and product with crucial delivery parametres being delivered before dawn so they can, in turn, supply their Perth based customers by the commencement of normal business trading hours each day. The average Consignment volume is approximately three pallet spaces. A great many of the produce customers are 'Mum and Dad' businesses which is not the customer base the rail service has any intention of helping or could hope to facilitate in their growth.

The transport industry has lobbied both Government and governing bodies responsible for the road network and access to no avail. It is now clear that the reluctance has no justified reasoning other than bureaucratic hand sitting.

The transport industry acknowledges access will come with some restrictions. Given the current situation of heavy vehicles overtaking one another holding up traffic in both lanes, one such restriction suggested being the use of the left lane only for all heavy vehicles would solve this issue. This could produce a better long-term outcome than what is currently in place.

This is only one such suggested restriction which the industry has put forward in an effort to gain support for this industry restricting situation. This issue has dragged on for many years, in this timeframe new technologies are now in place to make the ascent and descent safe for all road users. The industry as a whole needs to lobby government on this issue as surely common sense needs to be part of the consideration. Tony Graziano, Director – HPS Transport Pty Ltd Name and address supplied

From the Editor: What are your thoughts on these two letters? I would love to hear from you… Email karen@angrychicken.com.au

VOLUME 26 | NUMBER 2

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Iwould like to start with something positive. Well done to our State Government and Main Roads and everyone involved for delivering us Northlink. At the time of writing this, the Ellenbrook to Muchea leg was nearing completion (Page 6) however, my experience involved myself and bestie in a four wheel drive pulling two large horses in a three horse angle float as we used Tonkin Hightway between the Swan Valley and Orange Grove to attend a horse show.

Floating horses is not fun at the best of times but this new route made our trip seamless. I think we only got caught at one traffic light in the whole trip and we were there before we knew it.

In this edition (Pages 2 and 3), two WA Transport readers have their say about large livestock on WA roads and Access for 36.5 metre RAV vehicles on Greenmount Hill. Also in this edition (Page 11), we have a ‘new’ section for readers called, “Questions to the WA State Government”. Over the past year we have found that many of the readers’ questions went beyond the Transport Ministers portfolio and I would like to sincerely thank Main Roads for helping me get your questions to the right Governmental departments in WA and get them answered. If you have questions, suggestions or would just ‘like to be heard’ on anything ‘transport related’ please email me at karen@angrychicken.com.au .

Karen Best,

2 ..............................................Letters to the Editor – Livestock on our Roads, Greenmount Hill access for 36.5 metre RAV vehicles

6 ..............................................Northlink Milestone

7 ...............................................Hay Street Bridge height clearance to increase

8 ..............................................WA Farmers and the transport industry continuing to help the drought stricken

9 ..............................................Heavy Vehicle Services – Achievements and Looking Ahead

12 ...........................................Truckies call for help after the fires

13 ...........................................More projects earmarked to reduce run-off-road crashes on rural roads

14 ...........................................Western Roads Federation – WA Transport Industry Training takes a step forward

16 ...........................................Fremantle High Street upgrade

18 ...........................................Trucking industry embraces diversity program

19 ...........................................Twiggy to shake up cattle industry with $50M investment

22 .........................................Road Safety boost for towns along South Western Highway

10 ...........................................A Fair Go for Owner Drivers

11 ..............................................Questions to the WA State Government

17 ............................................Bird’s Eye View

20 .........................................HCVC

23 .........................................WA Transport History

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PERTH 77B Kurnall Road Welshpool WA 6106 p: 08 9350 6470 f: 08 9350 6570 perth@khitch.com.au

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