Carriers’ Corner

I’d like to know how and why it is that public commentators and B-grade experts are given a platform every time an incident involving a truck occurs on the open road. (I particularly enjoy it every time I see the infamous, self-styled road safety expert, Clive Matthew-Wilson, get rolled out by the mainstream media.)

It happens despite immense and unwavering evidence of the value those in trucking provide to their communities and society, including delivering fuel, keeping supermarket shelves full of stock, maintaining the roads, and playing their part in helping the country earn export dollars.

I may be biased, but the past few weeks have left me sickened at the vile commentary doing the laps in print and broadcast media about trucks being the catalyst for unsafe roads, and direct contributors to a raft of nasty vehicle vs vehicle accidents (a term I apply broadly, given some of the circumstances).

It’s the simple headline that always starts with ‘Truck vs…’ or ‘Truck and car collide’. Perhaps I’m hypersensitive, but I’m 99% sure that sequence of nouns ain’t no coincidence; our media friends are pretty determined to paint the industry in a stereotyped and demonising light.

Perhaps I need to flip this on its head and ask why rail is, for some unknown reason, the apparent golden child of transport, there to save us from the dreaded and dangerous truck combinations so evilly roaming our roads? We can talk about the practicality and viability of plucking logs from a forest all day long or doing milk collections from all manner of rural locales, but at the heart of it is the reality that rail has even greater infrastructure issues than roading. By comparison, irrespective of the dilapidated state of our highways and byways, at least the road network covers the entire country, unlike our track and wagon brethren, who can only dream of such a footprint.

I’m not here to trigger a road vs rail (or shipping, for that matter) debate, other than to say that each mode has an essential role and that the ‘horses for courses’ analogy should be suitably applied in the consideration and application of each mode.

What I am looking for is acknowledgement: simple, enduring respect and understanding for the role we collectively play for our country through good, bad or indifferent times. Need I mention the immediate calls to action delivered upon for any manner of recent significant local events? Think the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes, Covid-19 response, or the carnage generated by any ‘one in 50-year weather system’ rearing its head. The trucking industry is there – rain, hail or shine – getting the job done.

What grates with me most isn’t the lack of recognition for what we’re doing in exceptional circumstances – it’s the taking for granted of what we do as a matter of course, day in, day out. Our ability to magically keep those supermarket shelves stocked, to keep the tank full at the local service station, to get the building materials to the new house site. It’s the crazy-o’clock starts, the challenging shift patterns, the 60-plus hour weeks, the compliance with legislative worktime and fatigue-management protocols, the telematics and driver monitoring/ mechanisms, and the myriad of other norms to which we commit.

When you cast your eyes back across that list of offensively selfless tasks and investments the industry makes to play its part in contributing to the smooth running of NZ Inc, it leaves me baffled why we continue to be cast in such a light.

So, as I say, if anyone can tell me how the media has been convinced that we’re a bunch of reckless roaddestroying highway roamers, I’d love to hear from you.

Blake Noble is managing director of Transcon, a 15-truck general freight operation based in Warkworth, north of Auckland.