Driver Training!!??

Well, here I sit in the passenger seat heading north out of Perth to Tom Price in the Pilbara. In the drivers’ seat is “the new boy”, otherwise known as Stewart. Tagging along behind us is two fridge trailers and a dry pan – loaded with a weeks work of supplies for Windawarrie, Brownfields (Jundunmunnah) and a dozen or so pallets for Pilbara Food Supplies.

It’s been a few years since I’ve sat in the passenger seat and this time it’s in a borrowed truck as well. My truck is in the workshop getting a bit of attention so I grabbed the boss’s truck (cleaned his crap out 😉 and set off last night.

Stewart is along for the trip to give him some experience with triples and so he can learn where the various runs go and generally get a feel of how we do things. As soon as he is up to speed on things and we have the new truck on the road he will be chucked into the thick of it on his own.

The new truck is expected to be handed over to us on Friday 28th – only four days from now. I’m going to be the lucky driver getting this one so I’m pretty keen for Friday to hurry up and arrive. We had a look at it yesterday and there’s still a lot that has to be done to it. Someone had better pull their finger out!

I have a 3500 watt 240 volt inverter on order for it – that will power a microwave oven/laptop charger and will even be big enough to power an ordinary kitchen kettle if I want. Expresso machine, maybe? 😉

The weather up ahead of us is pretty bad. Last reports I heard from Karratha are that over eight inches of rain has fallen in 24hrs. The highway between Roebourne and Port Hedland is closed, which won’t affect us but if that weather continues to the south-east we will be in for real trouble.
At present, just north of Paynes Find, it is completely overcast. Meekatharra has had some rainfall. I think Newman has had two inches and Tom Price has already had three inches of rain. This is more than enough to start water flowing over the highway at the floodways so things might get interesting later on today. Wish I’d brought my GoPro camera long.

Ok, I’ve got to get back to criticising someone’s driving skill, bloody hard work 🙂

Cheers, Mike.

Let’s Play Chicken

There are few things more frustrating for a truck driver than dealing with car drivers who, through ignorance or stupidity, seem determined to add their names to the nations road toll list.
This has always been a problem in the cities and the more populated coastal areas-in fact, the coastal areas during long weekends/school holidays and the like are notorious for car drivers behaving badly around trucks. The Brand Highway in Western Australia, part of Highway 1 which circles the entire continent, is a prime example of this-several years ago at Easter I had to leave the road twice in the space of three hours to avoid collisions holiday makers. Pretty scary shit in a roadtrain.

Well, with the increase in mining in the inland areas of the Pilbara employees of companies like BHP, Rio Tinto and FMG and their subcontractors have shown they aren’t afraid of pulling out in front of a fully laden triple or quad roadtrain travelling on the Great Northern Highway. In the Newman area there are four hotspots-at least one of these locations will guarantee you a “panic brake” incident on your trucks’ data logger if you drive thru at shift change.

The first is Capricorn Roadhouse. The roadhouse is located on a bend in the Gt Northern Hwy about 16km south of Newman. Next door is a whole lot of accommodation for Fly in-Fly out (FIFO) workers. Now, occasionally you’ll get a roadhouse customer pulling out at a stupid moment but the vast majority of idiots come from the FIFO workers that seem to think their diesel 4×4 can out accelerate a truck coming through at 90kph. Doesn’t always happen like they think it will.

Number two is “The Nullagine Road”. It enters the Gt Northern Hwy from the east and has plenty of straight road to the north and south so drivers should be able to see traffic coming at them. Should. Not do. This intersection is a favourite with all the bus drivers given the job of safely delivering the workers to and from the work sites every shift. I think a few of these bus drivers get their kicks turning the helpless passengers into quivering wrecks-I know I’d be happy to let the cool kids sit down the back if my driver had just pulled out into the path of 118 tonne triple roadtrain.

The third is the northern most entrance to Newman. Here there is plenty of visibility in both directions so they can’t complain about not seeing something 4.3m high, 2.2m wide and 53.5m long coming at them. Regardless of this they just don’t seem to care, and once one pulls out two or three more will follow. Safety in numbers? I’m not sure. Stand on the brakes again, white knuckle grip on the steering wheel and a quick glance at the dashcam-if I run over and kill these idiots I want proof they were responsible for their own deaths. Then, to add an insult to the whole thing, they only travel 400m up the road before turning off the highway into a BHP site just opposite the sewage ponds. Really, it was that bloody important that you get in front of me, when the road behind me was completely traffic free, just so you can save 20 seconds on your way to work?! What is wrong with these people.

The fourth one has only really been a problem for me when I’ve been travelling south towards Newman. It’s at the Hope Downs 4 access road and the problem is so bad that the mine has actually positioned trailer mounted illuminated billboards on the side of the road north and south of the intersection warning traffic on the highway to look out for their less than intelligent workers not giving way or looking at all. There’s some real dipshits here.

I don’t know why these people feel the need to endanger their lives and put me in a position I really don’t want to be in. I mean, I don’t want someone’s death on my hands regardless of who’s fault it is-I’ve seen that shit really mess people up. Is it because they’re here for a good time not a long time as FIFO workers? Do they drive the same way when they are at home with wives/girlfriends/kids in the car instead of workmates? Do they drive their own car the same way or are they just thrashing the company vehicle because, hey, they don’t have to pay for it? Or are they just city people that come out to the bush to work and really have no concept of how dangerous their actions are and how much I’d really, really like to just run the dumb prick over to teach them a lesson?

The mining companies need to be aware of the havoc some of their employees create when they are let loose on public roads and the police need to monitor these problem spots and actually do something about these reckless drivers before they get the call to a fatality, not after. I hardly ever see the police patrolling along that section of Gt Northern Hwy and I’ve been a regular through here for years.

Oh, and do something about all these mine vehicles leaving their orange beacon on while travelling on public roads-orange flashing beacons are supposed to be a warning to other road users of a hazard, roadworks or an oversize load. More than half of the active orange beacons on public roads in the Pilbara region are firmly attached to mine vehicles driven by oblivious mine workers.

Cheers, Mike.

Dusting Off The Cobwebs

Thought I’d better show some TLC towards my blog. It’s not that I’d forgotten about it – it’s just that I haven’t been able to find the time! So, to break the dry spell, I thought I would chuck a quick picture or two up here.

First pic is me in the process of dropping one empty trailer before hooking onto my remaining two loaded trailers prior to unloading them at the Packsaddle Camp, Area C minesite.

Second pic was taken in the main street of Meekatharra, Western Australia. I was heading north on a hot afternoon and saw the Pub in the distance and almost chucked it in for the day 😉