Getting bums in seats

Nearly every day we see a report in the media where a truck has had an accident or rollover and the road is closed while a clean-up and recovery is in place.

This is becoming a common occurrence and I’m left wondering what has changed as there was a time when this was a rarity. Sure, the transport task is busier than ever so each year more trucks are on the road. However, we appear to have inadequately trained truck drivers.

A check on statistics with some of the major insurance companies surprised me by showing that over the last decade in Australia, serious truck accidents have actually halved. Fatigue related accidents had dropped by two thirds and inappropriate speed accidents have dropped also by more than half.

While this is highly commendable, on the other side ‘human or driver error’ is the major cause of crashes caused by trucks at over forty percent. When combined with inappropriate speed and fatigue the human factor is responsible for two out of three serious accidents.

The trucking industry has long cried out that the majority of accidents are not the truck drivers fault and the statistics have backed us up.

Statistics are a ‘wonderful thing’ and they show that ten years ago truck drivers were indeed careful and were at fault in only eight percent of crashes. Fast forward to the present time and this figure has jumped alarmingly to thirty percent.

This trend is ‘terrible’ and one has to be concerned at how we are training our truck drivers and the ease at which they are able to obtain a heavy vehicle license before they are let loose on our roads.

We do have a shortage of people wanting to become truck drivers and it’s a schools are good at teaching a person ‘how’ to get a driver’s license but seem to lack the ability and time to teach them to be a qualified driver. big problem trying to get bums into seats but we must not compromise on standards. Driving trucks require lots of training, skill and education and this all takes time.

For too long now transport companies have failed to provide any training to encourage drivers to become suitable enough to become truck drivers.

Transport companies need to step up and offer training to potential drivers so they can eventually be qualified for the job.

Fast tracking people into the industry is a recipe for disaster. We owe it to everyone’s safety that use the road to have properly trained drivers at the wheel of trucks. The potential for untrained drivers to have a major accident does not bear thinking about.

It is my opinion that some Driving

For too long these companies have been reluctant to put their hands in their pockets and fund driver training. They have the trucks and hopefully qualified experienced drivers to mentor our future drivers.

How else are potential drivers going to get the necessary experience to be qualified transport operators? We need the industry to be sustainable and up until now not much has been done to solve our driver shortage.

Keep it safe, Ray

Pratt