Trucking Nation

24/03/2026

27/11/2023

02/04/2023

Something for a bit of fun, enjoy!

05/08/2022

22/07/2022

Excellent article, well done SARTA

This is NOT Safety/Risk-Based Enforcement: It’s a Tragic Disgrace
SARTA and all other responsible organisations and individuals who make up the vast majority of the trucking industry, absolutely support the need for trucks to be safe/roadworthy and be operated safely.

It is blindingly obvious however that too many police and some other enforcement officers are NOT focussed on safety and are not applying a reasonable approach to HV roadside inspections.

NHVR is far more pragmatic than SAPol, generally speaking. Some police officers and units however seem determined to destroy the industry and drive good hard-working responsible people, including drivers, out of it.

Clearly it’s a short-sighted and utterly ill-informed approach by those officers, who seem ignorant of the facts and of the harm THEY are causing to the economy by adding hundreds of millions in unjustified and unwarranted costs to the road freight task; costs which end up on the shop shelves.

AND FOR ZERO SAFETY GAIN MOST OF THE TIME!!!!!!!

It’s impossible to discuss this effectively with SAPol because they have their heads buried in the sand as they continue to adopt a mindless cops vs robbers approach in which SAPol no longer engages in effective mature discussion with industry, as it did very successfully on a monthly basis for over 25 years until the current crop of officers moved in. Instead their approach is one of belligerence and bullying based on a model that assumes, incorrectly, that:

1. All truck operators are millionaires and can afford to replace parts that are still well within the safe wear limits or which are chipped or slightly damaged but in no way present a safety risk;

2. All truck operators and drivers push their drivers and have no regard for safety and have to be hounded by officers to ensure safety and that the mindless belligerent approach of police is actually producing the best safety outcomes, when the opposite is true;

3. All trucks can and should be 100% perfect every km of every trip, despite the fact that trucks are workhorses and often the roads provided by governments are less than perfect driving surfaces and contribute to or cause wear and failure of parts;

4. Things fail or break when the truck is parked up; ie nothing fails en-route;

5. That ANYTHING and everything that is worn or less than perfect is a safety risk that warrants defects (not self-clearing ones) and full inspections at the DIT Shed and even grounding of the truck, without any regard to the location nor to the enormous cost that it will incur for zero safety gain;

6. That there is no difference between the safety risk associated with significant brake or suspension and other key safety faults (which absolutely must not be allowed) versus a cracked reflector or even faded/worn screen printing on the yellow and red buttons on the dash! and

7. That as police officers they know what they are doing and are qualified to inspect and defect/ground trucks, when in fact most of them are not; as every service provider who has frequently had to try, unsuccessfully, to find a supposed air leak wrongly ‘detected’ by an officer (when it was in fact just the airbags equalising) or replace components that are still well within safe wear limits can attest.

Mindless black and white literal enforcement of equipment specifications that are not properly understood by officers is adding hundreds of millions of utterly unjustified cost to the national road freight task and the economy without any safety gain.
It is also a massive waste and miss-use of costly and limited policing resources.
Proper roadworthiness enforcement by trained and well-informed officers who apply an appropriate safety-focussed and risk-based approach and who are mature enough to work WITH the industry, is what should be happening. NHVR is moving in that direction whereas police, generally, are pulling in the opposite direction and that must stop.
In what universe is it even remotely sensible to defect and even ground a truck because the screen printing on the yellow and red buttons is worn? See the pics attached.

1. That is plain stupidity and/or belligerence by the police involved.

2. The buttons are DIFFERENT COLOURS.

3. The buttons are DIFFERENT SHAPES.

4. The screen printing only gets worn due to FREQUENT USE and so the drivers KNOW what the buttons are for.

5. If anything either a warning or a self-clearing defect should have been issued, but evidently that would not have satisfied the officer’s ego … and no the driver was not aggressive!

Yet one prominent industry service/repair supplier told us this week that he replaces hundreds of these buttons following defects issued by officers, almost always police, AND IN A RECENT CASE THE OFFICER GROUNDED THE TRUCK JUST BECAUSE OF THE worn printing on the buttons!!!!!!!

Since SAPol continues to refuse to engage maturely with industry, the sooner the HVNL is changed to limit the enforcement of roadworthiness standards to officers who are fully trained and skilled in that task AND who adhere to NHVR Directions re the application of a genuine Safety-focussed and Risk-based approach, the better.

Governments must act to fix this debacle and end the ineffective and counter-productive belligerent police practices. SARTA is pushing hard to ensure Ministers understand and that this happens.

Defects of HVs should be issued because they are necessary for safety NOT JUST BECAUSE THE OFFICER CAN or because he/she wants to rack up their stats to appease more senior officers’ KPIs in the false belief that throwing unjustified defects around is an effective safety strategy!

14/06/2022

Could not agree more with Frank Black

OPINION: Losing the logbook is a step in the wrong direction, placing more pressure on owner-drivers

09/06/2022

Caravan owners are urged to weigh their rigs after a recent Queensland Transport and Main Roads blitz found most of the vehicles pulled over were noncompliant.

30/05/2022

https://twitter.com/7newssc/status/1531190668433170433?s=21&t=_bbSSrJh-vRIqv5ITIkISQ

“Police and Main Roads are coming down heavy on caravanners who don't load their vehicles correctly for a trip. Non-compliance could lead to hefty fines but the safety risk is even worse. https://t.co/dSgFbin6LM ”

18/02/2022

positive

You may remember in early 2020 Sarah brought you the story of Chris Harmer whom we dubbed “Mr Positive” who had not long prior been diagnosed with a very aggressive brain tumour along with being the father of three with two being profoundly disabled. The industry in Wagga Wagga pulled together and in the spirit of brotherhood and mateship joined with his extended Christian community in lending support to this incredible family. Then last year Sarah brought you the second instalment with Chris when he subsequently went into remission. For a time Chris was doing so well that his neurosurgeon even signed off on Chris getting his car license back which allowed Chris a degree of independence and some respite for his wife Carol we’re sure.

For those of you that have followed this inspirational story of Chris and his family, we now have the third and final instalment in this story. Our mate Bruce Dodds spent some time with Chris at a benefit day arranged for him. At Chris’s request, the proceeds from the benefit day were donated to fellow truck driver Doug Newman who was in Hospital at the same time as Chris for the same tragic condition.

Sadly Chris has now lost his battle with this hideous disease. Doug had also tragically lost his battle the day before Chris.

The takeaway for us in producing the story is that no matter what happens in our life, no matter what cards we are dealt, there is always another side to look at. When you look at Chris’s life and the cards that he has been dealt you would forgive him for complaining, walking away or becoming a bitter man, however, Chris was quite the opposite to this. Chris looked at each thing as a blessing, his children, his treatment, his friends, his church and his family were all the positives in his life. His unshakable belief and faith in his God held him strong and firm. In the dealings we have had with Chris, we have never heard a complaint or a harsh word.

We don’t have the answers. Whatever you believe in, whatever higher power you feel you answer to, if that is God, Jesus Christ, Allah, Buddha or that science textbook from University it doesn’t matter, if your unshakable belief makes you half the good person that Chris Harmer was and provides half the comfort to you and your families then follow that. It has been an honour and pleasure to have known Chris and we thank him, Carol and the children who have allowed us to tell the story of this absolute tragedy.

We would also like to thank the Burkinshaw family for allowing us to shoot some of these stories at their depot in Wagga Wagga, what a shining example of a Transport company in this day and age that actually shows compassion and empathy to their drivers, quite rare these days. We also thank the Wagga Boat Club for everything they did to accommodate our crew during the pandemic. All truly amazing people.

At 9:30 am on the 17th February 2022 Chris finally lost his battle,

At 8:15 am on the 16th February 2022, Doug Newman passed away and we say Gods speed to you both, your shifts are done!

Rest in peace.

07/12/2021

A LOOMING CRISIS BUT WHO IN CANBERRA CARES?

While political parties and journalists seem fixated on Newspolls and who is going to win the contest next year between two major parties when the bulk of Australia want neither – let’s face it, the polls today tell us 36 percent of voters want the Coalition, it means 64 percent don’t; 38 percent want labor, 62 percent don’t.

But all this nonsense prompts the question, who in Canberra has their head around the real issues?

Almost everything that grows the economy, on any given day, relies on trucking.

Diesel trucks are described as the lifeblood of Australia; almost everything we buy spends some time on the road; yet we’re told trucking networks could grind to a halt within a matter of weeks.

There’s a looming shortage of an important chemical used to remove pollution from the exhaust of diesel trucks.

It is called AdBlue, which is an anti-pollution additive used in modern diesel vehicles. Simply, without it, trucks can’t start let alone run.

But here we go again.

The chemical that goes into making AdBlue, urea, is imported from China.

That supply has dried up.

There appears to be no hidden agenda here.

The cost of fertilizer in China has gone up and a large portion of that is urea. Reportedly, China don’t want to export any Urea in order to keep the price of local fertilizer down.

So if we can’t come up with a new supply of Urea, and, therefore, AdBlue, we are facing a crisis. The whole country will be impacted.

One transport company reportedly has 250 prime movers. They buy their fuel in bulk; they’re out of AdBlue next week.

Where is the Morrison government?

What happens if stock isn’t delivered to supermarkets? Or tractors can’t harvest? Or hospitals don’t have backup generators?

Who is telling us how we increase the manufacture of AdBlue in this country?

As I understand it, if we can’t source extra urea to make AdBlue we are literally, not metaphorically, up the creek.

And if the supply trickles in, you know what happens when a product is in short supply, the price goes up.

How does this then affect everything?

The reality is urea is in dangerously low supply around the world.

Some bulk users have stock in reserve.

China has turned off the tap and serious action is needed urgently to determine an alternative source of urea from overseas; but, then, most countries are in a similar situation to us.

How then can it be that South Korea, to name but one country, is facing a similar crisis because this is where all this environmental stuff about carbon dioxide kicks in.

In South Korea, there are environmental regulations stipulating that manufacturers use urea or face penalties; but we then learn that last month, South Korea, flew a military oil tanker to Australia to airlift 27,000 litres of urea solution because there was a dire shortage threatening to stall commercial transport and industries in South Korea.

Wouldn’t you think that makes us dumb? I note that the Managing director of Shaws Darwin Transport, Allan Thornley, has said today that he had talked to his supplier of AdBlue, “and he’s already canvassed right through Europe and everywhere and can’t find any… we need a joint effort between Federal Government and industry leaders to sit down and figure out what we’re going to do”.

But Scott Morrison was at Mount Panorama at the weekend; Anthony Albanese was tying himself in knots trying to make us believe that his climate change policy would create 604,000 new jobs; yet from neither of them is there a syllable about this looming crisis.

When do these so-called political leaders, if ever, deal with the things that really matter to Australians?

You have to wonder whether they even know this crisis is looming.

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