What is wrong with current batch of truckies??

What is behind this poor standard of driving? Low requirements for people getting behind the wheel?

That about sums it up ol mate..........what ever happened to the offsiders of days gone by....they were the future truckers in training..........now you can go out and hand some smart ass a couple of thousand bucks and be driving a fully loaded B double down the road...........with far call time behind the wheel.

find me a bloke who can do a cap and curtain tarp or tie down a puss load of freight on a flat top .......no they all slide the curtain closed and woosh on down the road. Don't get me wrong all the saftey stuff is good for the industry but who has to think about their job these days.........just get in and steer.

I'm only 35 and yes i can do a cap and curtain tarp, tie almost anything on a flat top, fix almost anything that goes wrong with the truck (which does seem to happen often).....my boss told me that if he could find just one other person that could do what I do he would be set for life.......but alas every bloke that comes through here just seems to not care or just not want to learn.

rant over.......thank you for your attention......

Best mobile phone story I've heard was from a rescue volunteer. Old mate is towing 2 decks of cattle and even tho he is coming up to a roundabout in middle of Glen Innes stays on phone (this is before hands free) to boss..... sorry boss I fell over!

Bang on Werkhorse !
Only got to see some of the results getting spider wheels running true around the place.
There is alot around that wouldnt have a bloody clue what to do if you gave them a jacked up spider hub, two wheels, a spacer ring, a block of wood and a wheel brace.

Basil

I think Werkhorse and Jimbo have nailed some good points. The bloke that nearly cleaned up Abbot was driving his truck like a car .. wasn't reading the road far enough ahead .. and certainly didn't allow for the carelessness of the dickhead in the minibus, that appears to have swerved to the left, around Abbot's car.
What ever happened to teaching defensive driving? .. i.e. .. you make allowance for other drivers stupid errors?

I see way too many blokes yapping on phones in truck, juggling steering with knees, and cog swapping with the left hand, whilst holding the phone with the right. What gets me is how blatant people are about phone use whilst driving. They doubled the fine here, to $200, and still it makes no difference.

I watched a young bloke plough straight up the arse of a girl turning right, into a Coles carpark, a few weeks back .. and he was yapping away on the phone, that's why he never saw her. She saw him, though, and she got out, and abused the living crap out of him!

I don't go along with Swishy's idea of pulling over to the left to turn right, that only confuses everybody, and doesn't make it any easier to turn right. It's everyones responsibility to be ready to slow down, and even stop, when you see something ahead that could raise the danger level.

I agree about the woeful standard of on-the-job training, and general teaching. My stepdaughter worked for Schlumberger for 9 years, and they lost so many vehicles, due to carelessness and poor driving skills, they started an in-house, all-encompassing, driver training and vehicle care course. Their damage and write-offs bill dropped astronomically once they set this up.

Michelle became a driver trainer as part of her OH&S management job, and she clued us in to the sort of levels they train the Schlumberger people to. The trainer acts like an idiot passenger, turning up the radio full bore, and pulling on the handbrake unexpectedly, and giving heaps of contradictory "urgent" directions .. all designed to show the driver he/she has to have full control of passengers, and not let them interfere with their driving.
They teach them to pull up behind vehicles, so they can still see the tyres of the vehicle in front, where they meet the road. This gives room for error, room to pull out if needed, and room so that if they get hit from the rear, they don't generally shunt the car in front.

Schlumberger make their employees that are given vehicles, sign for them, and sign a form that states they will care for the vehicles as if they are their own, or as if they are hire vehicles. They have to promise not to drive abusively, drive in a fuel saving manner, and not lend the vehicle to anyone else, not even family members. In addition, all vehicles are GPS tracked. One bloke lent his Schlumberger car to a mate, and he pranged it. The Schlumberger bloke claimed he did the damage himself .. but the GPS told on him, and his big made-up story promptly developed a lot of holes. In accordance with his signed contract, he had to pay for all repairs.

I see way too many truckies driving trucks like they are cars .. tailgating on the freeways, not allowing enough room to stop if something goes wrong .. travelling too fast, cornering too hard.
I see way too many blokes with loose items on the tray .. gluts, chains, binders, parts and even load items not secured in any manner.

There's a lot of managers not doing their job out there. Too many truckies with inadequate driving skills and a she'll-be-right attitude. Too many blokes that shouldn't be behind a truck steering wheel because of their poor attitude to other road users. Too many trucks going arse up. How do you roll a truck, apart from swerving to avoid an accident?? 98% of rollovers are pure carelessness, coupled with excessive speed for the conditions.
I dunno what it's going to take .. maybe a few more sizeable truck disasters, and multiple fatalities .. before intensive, and comprehensive, truck-driving skills, are taught to would-be truckies .. but I know for sure, it's one area that certainly needs serious attention ..

I think this bloke win's the d!ckh#ad of the week award.


www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/keilo...frf7kx-1225830319382

What I find staggering, and indicative of the poor level of driving skills and lack of road knowledge .. is how many people are coming out and defending this piece of poor driving by the truckie. There are over 250 comments on the story below, and probably around 20% are blaming the driver of Abbots car!! ..

www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-nee...frfkw0-1225831634094

The situation is simple. The truckie was driving too fast for the conditions, didn't read the road ahead, and left it too late to brake.
I am stunned at the number of people who are commenting that it was Abbots driver that was at fault, for stopping on a freeway!!!
This WASN'T a freeway! It was a highway with a broken centre line, and the driver was operating legally, by pulling up in the centre of the road to turn right.

Even if it WAS a freeway, with no stopping allowed, you still MUST allow for traffic stopping suddenly! At least several times a day on most freeways, traffic stops suddenly, due to accidents or congestion!
Any fool who drives a semi, at full speed, without allowing braking room for suddenly stopped traffic, due to objects on the road (that have usually fallen off trucks!), or accidents, doesn't deserve to be driving a truck.

The problem is a general lack of professionalism and advanced driving skills amongst ALL drivers, and the me-me-me attitude of too many drivers. I am personally of the opinion, that driving skills will only improve when staged licence levels are introduced, and attendance at advanced driving skills courses are compulsory.

We all like to think our driving skills are good, but additional training is always a bonus to make you aware of faults and bad habits developing in your driving style, that lead to complacency and accidents. You can never be complacent behind the wheel, particularly of a truck, and you must always be aware of exceptional road situations arising, that keep you on your toes. A few seconds inattention and carelessness will soon see a disaster happening.

In the case of this Ryans Freighter truckie, I'll wager he was distracted by the media gathering by the side of the road, and lost concentration for a few seconds, and then suddenly realised he was going too fast for the conditions, that changed quickly while he was distracted. You get distracted from watching road conditions, at your cost.

www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-nee...frfkw0-1225831634094

From the link you posted Onetrack it is amusing reading some of the 250 posts from our countries experts on the event.....no wonder there is agro on the roads.

Basil

Basil - I saw an episode happen in front of, and nearly alongside me, on the Kwinana Freeway heading South, about 3-4 weeks ago, that left me realising, how some drivers need to be taken off the road, until they fully understand how poor their driving skills are.

This truckie with a tandem drive, tri-axle tipper, unladen, was heading South, hogging the right hand lane at about 90 kliks. The cars were lining up behind him, and the bloke directly behind him, in a Rodeo with a refrigerated food van body, was really impatient.

Traffic was heavy, but the Rodeo bloke managed to swerve left into the middle lane .. waited until the middle lane cars crept past the truck .. then he swerved right (no signalling), barely missing the truck roobar, to plant himself firmly in front of the truck. Then he decided to slow down, to teach the truckie a lesson!! .. :

Of course, the truckie was an identical fool. He decided he'd teach this idiot in the Rodeo a lesson by pouring on the coal and virtually shoving his grille up against the back of the van!
You wouldn't believe what happened next! The fool in the Rodeo BRAKED!! - HARD!!! ..

Next thing, we have a semi and tri, all wheels locked up and smoking .. starting to slide sideways in the right hand lane!! Cars everywhere, including next to the truck, nowhere to go, fence on the left, concrete rail barrier on the right, and drivers swerving everywhere! ..

Luckily, the truck driver let the brakes go and recovered without hitting anything .. and the bloke in the rodeo just blithely roared off .. happy in the fact he'd just taught an ignorant truckie a lesson, and nearly caused a major disaster in the process! ..

My missus tried to get the rego numbers of both idiots, but just missed out. I wish I had a video mounted in the car, like the Yankee cop cars, I would have been sending a copy to the cops to teach these clowns a lesson!
I cannot believe how little people understand the consequences of their poor driving behaviour!

my the fleas of a thousands camels infest both their armpits .. we all get impatient sometimes but being a driver of a car or truck we should never put lives in danger on purpose

I don't go along with Swishy's idea of pulling over to the left to turn right, that only confuses everybody, and doesn't make it any easier to turn right.

Sorry, Onetrack, I'm with Swishy on this one. Over here in the wet islands to the east the rule is simple. Outside of built-up areas, unless there is a marked right-turn lane in the centre of the road, if you wish to turn right you signal left and pull off the road to the left and STOP. When the road is clear in both directions you turn right into the road where you want to go. I can see no reason why that should confuse anybody, in fact if someone gets confused by that rule then maybe they shouldn't be driving at all.

Apart from that, generally I agree with what you have said about the standard of driving, and here in NZ it is certainly no better than in Oz. However for some reason there has been a huge reduction here in the number of serious truck accidents here in the last 5 years; not really sure why but possibly due to the introduction of graduated heavy truck licences and fairly strict enforcement of the speed limit (90 km/h here for trucks); this is in spite of the increase in the number of trucks on the road. It isn't because of a reduction in allowable driving hours, we have gone from a maximum of 11 driving hours in a 14 hour work day to a maximum of 13 hours in a day, which can be all driving. In practice, of course this is very unlikely as we would almost run out of land in that time.