NZ Truck & Driver August 2018

NZ TRUCK & DRIVER

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| August 2018

August 2018 $8.50 incl. GST

BIG TEST Quon convert | FLEET FOCUS Truckloads of diversity | FEATURE A legendary Legend

FLEET FOCUS

Truckloads of diversity

FEATURE

A legendary Legend

The Official Magazine of the

ISSN 1174-7935 Issue 215

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CONTENTS Issue 215 – August 2018 2

News The latest in the world of transport, including….women to the fore in driver training courses; electric, autonomous logtruck unveiled; 640 horsepower 8x4 MAN launched in New Zealand

20 Giti Truck Tyres Big Test A man goes up a hill a skeptic…and comes back down a believer. Well, perhaps not a complete convert – but at least prepared to reconsider his stance on almost always driving his new UD Quon with its AMT in manual mode

37 Transport Forum Latest news from the Road Transport Forum NZ, including…..what’s in store for road transport operators from the Government’s employment law overhaul; spike in the number of drugged drivers involved in fatal road crashes demands Government action

48 Fleet Focus So here’s Arvinan Ram – a 38-year-old wife and mother, who came to NZ 17 years ago to wed in an arranged marriage. Standing proud – wearing a golden sari, bright pink nail polish and matching lipstick –

redefining what a Kiwi transport operator is in the 21st Century

FEATURES 61 WE LOVE NZ TRUCKS & DRIVERS Teenager Harrison Wells reckons one of NZ’s most prestigious schools deserves big thanks – for directing him into the career he loves… driving trucks

Newton saw an apparently-suicidal young woman sitting on the edge of a clifftop, he didn’t hesitate to go to her aid. Police say he may have saved her life

80/ PPG Transport Imaging Awards 81 Recognising NZ’s best-looking truck fleets – this month featuring the 2017/2018 annual winner….and including a giant pullout poster featuring its livery

81 A legendary Legend

63 LEGENDS Trucking legend Mike Lyon loved the versatility of the trucks back in the 1960s and ‘70s. And when the livestock driver didn’t think the gear was sufficiently multipurpose, he’d turn self-taught engineer… and design and build something better himself!

73 Telematics mandatory… maybe?

The Kiwi trucking industry is well-placed to lead a likely move in coming years to make the use of telematics mandatory, Teletrac Navman’s Andrew Rossington believes

For many North American truck lovers, Kenworth’s retro classic Legend 900 is The Ultimate – as good as it gets. For Pukekohe operators Graham and Michelle Redington it was just a starting point!

87 Driver cadetship part of our business plan A column by Steve Divers, director career pathways – road freight transport – in the Sector Workforce Engagement Programme (SWEP)…on what it’s about, what it’s working to achieve…and how you can help

91 TRT Recently Registered

77 TRUCK DRIVER HERO

New truck and trailer registrations for June

When Fonterra milktanker driver Phil

MANAGEMENT Publisher

Advertising

Trevor Woolston 027 492 5600 trevor@trucker.co.nz Trevor Woolston 027 492 5600 trevor@trucker.co.nz Hayden Woolston 027 448 8768 hayden@trucker.co.nz

EDITORIAL Editor

Wayne Munro 021 955 099 waynemunro@xtra.co.nz

Editorial office Phone

PO Box 48 074 AUCKLAND 09 826 0494

Associate Editor

Brian Cowan

CONTRIBUTORS

Gerald Shacklock Cory Martin Robin Yates Steve Divers

ART DEPARTMENT Design & Production Luca Bempensante Zarko Mihic

EQUIPMENT GUIDE AUCKLAND, NORTHLAND, BOP, WAIKATO, CENTRAL NORTH ISLAND Advertising Don Leith 027 233 0090 don@trucker.co.nz AUCKLAND, LOWER NORTH ISLAND, SOUTH ISLAND Advertising Hayden Woolston 027 448 8768 hayden@trucker.co.nz

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Truck & Driver | 1

NEWS

Autonomous, electric logger

SWEDISH TECH STARTUP EINRIDE has unveiled an autonomous, all-electric logging truck – and says it hopes to have it working within two years!

The T-Log – a followup to its on-highway autonomous T-Pod etruck unveiled last year – has 300kWh batteries that allow it to carry 16 tonnes of logs 200 kilometres on one charge.

The etruck saves on build costs, weight, space and driver wages by completely doing without a cab.

The 7.3 metre-long 6x4 is equipped with cameras, lidars and radars that give it a 360-degree view of its surroundings – with absolutely no blind spots.

It’s powered by the Nvidia Drive system which allows it to operate completely autonomously… although it can also be remotely controlled, if necessary, from hundreds of kilometres away, using Phantom Auto teleoperation safety technology for reliable telecommunications.

Connected to intelligent routing software, providing it with real-time traffic data, the T-Log can adjust its route to avoid congestion on its programmed route well in advance.

Einride sees a fleet of T-Logs, co-ordinated by an intelligent routing system, optimising delivery time, battery life and energy consumption – making log transportation as efficient as possible.

Doing away with the driver’s cab allows the T-Log to be smaller, increases loading capacity,

The weird-looking T-Log improves flexibility, lowers production and operating costs and optimises energy consumption.

Einride CEO Robert Falck says that the company “is constantly pushing the boundaries of autonomous and all-electric vehicles in our ambition to lead the transition to a sustainable transportation system.

“With the T-log, we’ve created a vehicle that can withstand the rigours of a demanding environment. It is uncharted territory for us, but also an enormous market for batterypowered AVs.”

Falck adds: “The driver’s cab is what makes trucks expensive to produce – and having a driver in the cabin is what makes them expensive to operate.

“Remove the cabin and replace the driver with an operator who can monitor and remote-control several vehicles at once and costs can be reduced significantly. In addition, operating a vehicle from a distance allows for a much better working environment, as has already been demonstrated in industries like mining.”

The company says it already has registered interest from several major global companies. T&D

Another step towards No. 1 THE VOLKSWAGEN GROUP HAS TAKEN WHAT IT terms “a milestone” along the path to it becoming the world’s No. 1 truckmaker.

Volkswagen Truck & Bus – the company created in 2015 to bundle VW’s MAN, Scania and Volkswagen Brazil truck and bus brands – will be renamed the TRATON Group by year’s end.

The new company will also have a new legal structure, more independence and a strengthened identity.

The primary aim is to prepare the company for the capital market – to allow it to “tap additional financing opportunities offered by the capital market…” which, in turn, will open up its plans for world truck and bus market dominance.

Volkswagen Truck & Bus Group CEO and Volkswagen AG board of management member Andreas Renschler, says: “The new name TRATON is a major milestone on our road to become Global Champion of the transportation industry.

“Since our foundation, we have grown together faster than expected.

TRATON provides us with more independence. It will further strengthen our Group’s joint identity and uniqueness. The new name will also foster our visibility as the leading Group for innovative transportation solutions.

2 | Truck & Driver

“It will increase our attractiveness for new talents as well as for capital markets.”

VW confirms that its brands MAN, Scania, Volkswagen Truck & Bus, Brazil and its digital connectivity platform RIO, will retain their identities under TRATON. The company says the name “stands for a young company designed for and born in a new era of transportation.”

TRATON was created from the words transportation (the passion of the company and its customers), transformation (of transport, which is its mission), tonnage (as moved by customers daily, globally), tradition (of its strong brands) and being “always on”…the ultimate goal of customers and the company. T&D

NEWS

Toi Ohomai truck driver’s course graduates (from left) Destiny Leaf, Gina Parker, Krystal Whitter, Candice Westnedge, Whaianui Te-Riini, Karen Watson-Paul and Dayna Callender

Women truckies in training WOMEN ARE COMING TO THE FORE IN TRUCK DRIVER graduate courses being offered by tertiary education institutes.

Eight new female truck drivers have graduated from Tauranga’s Toi Ohomai with a New Zealand Certificate in Commercial Road Transport, Heavy Vehicle Transport Operator.

The women represented half of the graduates from the 19-week course – the highest level of female participation the course has ever had.

Meantime, a Commercial Road Transport (CRT) course at the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) – another part of the effort to ease the truck driver shortage – has also attracted a “significant” number of female students, according to the National Road Carriers Association.

NRC is encouraging its members to work on attracting under-25s to the industry – supporting the CRT courses at Toi Ohomai, North Tec in Whangarei, the Eastern Institute of Technology in Gisborne, Whitireia Polytech in Porirua and the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) in Invercargill.

The seven-month Manukau course, the first of its kind at MIT, aims to graduate students with learner’s Class 4 licences. It’s divided equally between classroom and practical work. Until now MIT has confined itself to running courses aimed more at the administrative side of road transport – logistics and freight.

NRC says that the SIT course in Invercargill is also proving attractive to women, with an equal split between male and female students.

The majority of the Toi Ohomai women graduates are heading straight into jobs where they’ll pursue their goal of becoming truck drivers.

Dayna Callender, for instance, has “always had an interest in trucks. From school the pressure is to go to university – but I was a student for a day on this course last year and decided this was what I wanted to do.”

Destiny Leaf needed a Class 4 licence to drive a house truck, but says the

course opens up a career path – “and it’s a career that has longevity.”

Toi Ohomai group manager – road transport and warehousing, Adrian Bowen says he’s had “really positive feedback from the companies these students have done work experience at.

“Their work is respected and their attention to detail has been commented on.”

The influx of women has been welcomed by Bay of Connections Freight Logistics Action Group chairman John Galbraith: “It’s fantastic to see women choosing a career in freight and this helps break down the stereotype that it’s a job just for men.”

Galbraith says others interested in getting into truck driving can attend the industry’s “Big Day Out” to be held as part of the Tauranga Careers Expo on August 10-11 at Baypark Stadium.

The MIT course is open to anybody with a car driver’s licence, says Vaughan Lovelock, MIT’s head of practice and logistics.

The course takes students through all the theory necessary to gain a Class 2 licence, as well as the practical experience.

This involves placement with a trucking company for one day a week, as well as using a driving simulator and gaining practical experience in forklift driving.

Nationally, the Sector Workforce Employment Programme (SWEP), set up early last year to encourage more drivers into the industry, has seen a 10% rise in the issuing of Class 5 licences, allowing drivers to use the largest truck and trailer units.

“The success of the CRT courses depends on the industry setting up cluster groups of trucking companies to support the programme and to provide the on-the-job practical experience, which is all part of the course,” says Steve Divers, SWEP’s director Career Pathways - Road Freight Transport. T&D Turn to Page 87 for Steve Divers’ latest news on SWEP Truck & Driver | 3

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NEWS The first MAN TGX35.640 8x4 in New Zealand – and the world! – is now in the fleet of Wellington’s Spencer Logistics

MAN gets 640hp 8x4 MAN NOW HAS AN 8x4 VERSION OF its TGX 35.640, thanks to a joint development between Kiwi distributor Penske New Zealand and engineers in Germany and NZ. “With NZ being predominantly an 8x4 market, having an 8x4 offering over 600 horsepower adds to MAN’s range of customer solutions,” says Brent Warner, Penske NZ’s North Island truck sales and Tauranga branch manager.

“We had identified this opportunity in the market and we’re thrilled to be able to provide this offering

to customers, who will continue to receive the performance, efficiency, and safety features they have come to expect from MAN.” The first of the twin-steers is a rigid that’s been delivered to MAN customer Spencer Logistics, from Wellington.

The operator wanted an 8x4 to best rationalise road user charges, while optimising productivity under the HPMV regime.

Warner says that Penske NZ “worked closely with MAN and local transport engineers to be able

to offer the capability of an 8x4 product with 640hp and 3000Nm of torque, which is a great fit with NZ’s unique regulatory environment.

“This is the first TGX 640hp 8x4 in the world so significant engineering development work has been undertaken in conjunction with MAN in Germany.

“Penske and MAN worked closely together to ensure the offering met both MAN’s, and the NZ Transport Agency’s strict requirements, while maintaining MAN’s class-leading safety functionality.” T&D

RUCs increase will cost consumers CONSUMERS WILL END UP PAYING FOR INCREASED Road User Charges – projected to increase around 5% per year over the next three years.

That’s the reality of the RUCs increase announced by the Government, Road Transport Forum chief executive Ken Shirley points out.

“Combined with the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax, which will inevitably be spread around the country, these RUC increases will add significantly to a road transport operator’s fixed costs.

“Trucking companies already operate on extremely tight margins, so any additional expenses they incur have to be passed on down through the supply chain – and inevitably those costs end up with the consumer.”

Adds Shirley: “As RTF indicated in our submission to the draft GPS, we acknowledge the necessity to improve New Zealand’s transport

infrastructure: Transport operators accept the high level of RUC is due to the direct relationship the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF) has to the roading network.

“It is also accepted that road users derive benefit where passenger transport on rail and ferry services eases road congestion.

“Unfortunately, the cross-subsidisation of road user taxes to fund modes that make no contribution to the NLTF and projects that have dubious economic benefit makes a mockery of the key GPS theme of ‘mode neutrality.’

“If these other modes are to receive funding from the NLTF then they should contribute to the Fund comparable to Road User Charges and fuel excise. That would provide for mode neutrality based on true and fair comparative advantage.” T&D Truck & Driver | 5

NEWS

Freightliner’s eCascadia will be in work in the US, in an on-the-job trial, by the end of this year

Freightliner etrucks working soon DAIMLER TRUCKS NORTH AMERICA’S development of medium and heavy-duty electric trucks will see it working closely with the giant Penske Truck Leasing and large port drayage operator NFI – both running the etrucks in their fleets.

The move is the next phase of a co-creation process that DTNA is using to actively involve customers in the development of commercial etrucks – so they are best-suited to target applications.

Starting late this year, Penske, NFI and DTNA’s own product validation engineering (PVE) test fleet will each begin operating the first of 10 Freightliner eCascadias and mid-range eM2s – combining to create a 30-truck Freightliner Innovation Fleet.

When the eCascadia US Class 8 tractor unit goes into production in 2021 Freightliner says it will have up to 730 peak horsepower, with an 80,000 lb/36,287kg gross combined weight rating (GCM).

Its batteries will provide 550Kwh of usable capacity, giving it a 400 kilometre range. The batteries will be capable of recharging to 80% of their maximum capacity (giving a 320km range) in about 90 minutes.

The eCascadia is designed for local and regional distribution and drayage, whereas DTNA sees the eM2 best suited to local distribution, pickup and delivery, food and beverage delivery and last-mile logistics applications.

The eM2 will initially have up to 480 peak horsepower, with a 26,000 lb/11,793kg GCM. Its 6 | Truck & Driver

batteries will provide 325Kwh of usable capacity, a range of up to 370kms – rechargeable to 80% capacity (for a 296 km range) in about an hour.

Penske Truck Leasing, which has a fleet of 270,000 vehicles, will run its 10 etrucks in California and the Pacific Northwest, while NFI – which has 4000 tractors and 8900 trailers in its drayage operation – will cart containers with them from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to warehouses in California’s so-called “Inland Empire.”

DTNA’s 10 trucks will be run in Oregon “to further expedite research and development of the technology.”

DTNA president and CEO Roger Nielsen says: “Freightliner is excited to be working with Penske and NFI on this critical learning process as we further develop and refine our commercial electric vehicle technology.

“Running multiple trucks in real-world applications will provide better insights for our engineers into the requirements of integrating electric commercial vehicles into fleet operations.

“We are partnering with these two customers for this phase of the co-creation process because they have use cases that closely fit the target applications we have identified. Both Penske and NFI are forward-thinking partners eager to take on the challenge, effort and investment that will be required during this important development phase.”

In preparation for the 2021 start of production of the eCascadia and eM2, DTNA is also creating

its own Electric Vehicle Council, which will help prepare potential customers – advising them how to evaluate etrucks and integrate them into their fleets.

Technical learnings from the Freightliner Electric Innovation Fleet and test fleet will be shared with these customers.

As the testing programme progresses, the Council will discuss planned product offerings to gather candid feedback as DTNA moves towards etruck production. It will also work with customers to establish the necessary charging infrastructure, vehicle deployment and service support.

“The DTNA approach to bring commercial electric vehicles to market is holistic,” says Richard Howard, senior vice president sales and marketing.

“While heavy-duty electric vehicles present the greatest engineering challenges, we’re committed to a process that leads to series production vehicles that are safe, reliable and efficient.” T&D

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NEWS

Fuso adds parts warranty FUSO NZ HAS INTRODUCED A TWO-YEAR WARR ANTY on its genuine parts – making it “one of the most comprehensive” parts guarantees in New Zealand, it believes.

The 24-month warranty – with no limit on kilometres – applies to all FUSO Genuine Parts fitted by an authorised dealer.

Fuso NZ national parts manager Allan McFarland says the warranty adds significant value to its parts offer.

“As far as I’m aware, we’re the only company in NZ offering a parts warranty this comprehensive for medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles,” he says.

McFarland adds: “FUSO Genuine Parts have always been the best value choice for customers, because they fit right first time, every time.”

The warranty shows the confidence Fuso NZ has in the quality of the

Fuso NZ storeperson Mohammed Maazouzi picking stock at the company’s parts warehouse in Auckland genuine parts range, he adds.

Fuso NZ says the warranty is its latest step to ensure that parts and service customers receive the best possible service, following a 45% improvement in order fill rate at its Auckland warehouse since the first quarter of 2017.

Adds McFarland: “Our goal is to be number one in our customers’ eyes, so we continue to increase the range of products we hold in stock. We now carry over 10,000 line items in our parts inventory, which has helped improve our off-the-shelf parts order fill rate to a very high standard – exceeding 96%.” T&D

Drugged drivers outnumber drunks in fatal accidents MORE FATAL ACCIDENTS ON THE roads last year involved drivers with drugs in their system than drunk drivers, according to the AA. Seventy-nine drivers in 2017 tested positive for some form of potentially impairing drug (illegal or prescribed), while 70 were above the blood/ alcohol limit (or refused a test). Some would have tested positive for both drugs and alcohol.

In 2016, by comparison, 59 drivers tested positive for drugs and 67 for an illegal alcohol level.

Both years represented a big increase in drugpositive tests: Excess blood/alcohol drivers outnumbered drug-impaired drivers 66 to 27 in 2015, 48 to 14 in 2014 and 53 to 14 in 2013.

The figures are sourced from the Crash Analysis System that records details of NZ road crashes.

The figures, says AA road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen, “confirm how big a problem drugged driving is on our roads and why we have to give Police saliva-based testing devices

to catch impaired drivers.”

Excluding alcohol, the most commonly detected individual drugs were cannabis and P – a dramatic increase in P impairment being “a particularly worrying trend,” says the AA. While the numbers look like drugged driving has suddenly skyrocketed, the AA believes the big spike is likely to be down to more thorough testing being done following crashes.

Thomsen adds: “The AA has called drugged driving a silent killer on our roads for years and these latest figures confirm how prevalent drugs are in fatal crashes.

“No one wants someone who is high driving towards their family at 100km/h, but right now the chances of being caught drugged driving is tiny. We have to change that.”

Currently, for Police to test a driver for drugs requires an officer to have strong cause to suspect drug use – and then take close to an hour to take

the driver to a Police station for an old-fashioned walk-and-turn test.

“Right now we don’t believe the Police have the tools they need to get drugged drivers off the road….” says Thomsen.

“The saliva testing devices being used in many other countries would be much faster and allow many more potentially drug-impaired drivers to be tested than the current approach.

“The AA knows there are opponents of roadside drug testing who have concerns about the accuracy and speed of the devices but these can be answered by using them in a targeted way and having confirmation tests to double-check results.

“Drug testing of drivers is working in Australia, the UK, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Ireland – and it can work here.” T&D Turn to Page 43 for the Road Transport Forum’s view on the drugged drivers spike.

Truck & Driver | 9

NEWS

Want good drivers?

Train good drivers PACIFIC HAULAGE WANTS HIGHLY-QUALIFIED drivers in its trucks….so, logically enough, it’s investing heavily in driver training.

The Gisborne-based logtruck operator recently enrolled 19 drivers in MITO’s 15-month training programme that leads to a National Certificate in Transportation of Logs by Road (Level 3).

Pacific Haulage operations manager Steven Kent likes to quote someone else’s clever comment on driver training: “What if you train your staff and they leave? What if you don’t….and they stay!

“It’s an apt way of looking at it. We invest in them and their training because they’re integral to our business.

“It’s good for the forestry companies we work with, it’s good for our drivers and it’s good for us,” says Kent.

“It’s important that we invest in training our people as it shows them that they are an important part of our business and they get a lot of

pride from that. It also shows forestry companies that we’re investing back in our business and providing them with the trained people that they require on a job.”

Kent says that the programme is compulsory for new Pacific drivers, but is also offered as an option to some of its more-experienced drivers: “For those completing the qualification, we definitely notice an improvement in compliance and a far greater understanding of the whole job in general.

“The investment pays off for us as it makes them a more well-rounded and professional truck driver. And they graduate with a national certificate, which opens up a lot of opportunities for them going forward. It’s definitely something we see a lot of value in.”

One of the 19, Rangi Taukamo-Pohio, 38, says: “Driving trucks has always been a passion of mine, since I was young – and this qualification will prove I have the skills and experience to do the job well and progress my career in the future.” T&D

NEWS

Car licence focus for students AS A PRACTICAL STEP TOWARDS HELPING ITS TRADES and hospitality students get jobs, Manukau Institute of Technology has launched a programme with the AA to help students get their car driver’s licences.

AA Driving School and MIT are running the MIT Accelerate Driving Training Programme – providing up to 75 students with three free driving lessons with an AA driving instructor.

The AA is also training four MIT staffers to run a defensive driving course, which can reduce the time it takes to get a full licence by six months. It will also provide one year’s free AA Membership to each Accelerate participant who obtains their full licence by the end of June next year.

AA Driving School GM Roger Venn says the programme aims to put MIT students in the best position to secure a job or apprenticeship: “Not having a driver licence can be a significant barrier to employment.

“We want to help students on their driver training journey, so they’re not held back from getting a job simply because they don’t have a licence.”

A joint ACC and Auckland Chamber of Commerce study in 2014 found that a young person with a full or restricted licence is three times more likely to secure employment than those without.

MIT chief executive Gus Gilmore says: “We know that around 30% of trades jobs posted at MIT require a driver licence.

MIT trades students and Accelerate participants Kevini Maumau (left) and Lawrence Mamia (centre), with AA Driving School chief instructor Bruce Fox. Photo Ali Ikram “We also know that to get to and from many jobs in Auckland require both a car and licence, so this programme is critical.”

For Year 12 Aorere College students, Kevini Maumau and Lawrence Mamia, who study at MIT’s Trades Academy, the programme is important. Says Mamia: “Getting my licence will open up a lot of opportunities and will give me a much better chance of getting a job.” T&D

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NEWS

Chempro buys into Aussie CHEMICAL PACKAGING,WAREHOUSING and logistics specialist Chempro NZ has bought Australian company, DG Logistics (DGL).

The move, says Kiwi owner Simon Henry, is to consolidate his company’s position in the Australasian chemicals sector.

The combined operation will have 20 sites throughout NZ and Australia, with 100,000 tonnes of chemical storage capacity, 250 staff and annual revenues in excess of $120million.

Chempro will gradually assimilate DGL Australia with its NZ operation to create a trans-Tasman business reaching from Perth to Christchurch – the new, combined business to operate as DGL Logistics.

Says Henry: “It will very much be business as usual, with management and staff of both firms remaining in place – and there should be little apparent change to our respective work practices.

“We’ve had a longstanding business relationship with DGL and we’re delighted by the agreement to combine our chemical logistics businesses.”

DGL, formed in 2000, has warehouse operations in all states of Australia, catering for general storage, pharmaceutical products, dangerous, hazardous, food grade, specific controlled temperature and general products.

The Rangiora-born and bred Henry has a diverse portfolio of business interests including commercial and industrial properties and water

and waste treatment companies in NZ and Australia.

The onetime beekeeper first made the news when he began buying property after the 1987 sharemarket crash. T&D

Bridgestone boss bows out BRIDGESTONE’S RETIRING AUSTRALASIAN MANAGING director Andrew Moffatt says he’s proud of the action the company has taken in trying to resolve the issue of end-of-life tyres in Australia and New Zealand.

“There is still a long way to go, but we are doing something positive about it.

“I hope to be remembered for raising the profile of the tyre industry in a positive light through Bridgestone’s contribution to society, and ethical operation of the company’s business,” he says.

Moffatt, the MD of both Bridgestone Australia and Bridgestone NZ, retires next month after almost 25 years in senior management roles with the company.

The new MD is Stephen Roche, former Australian Pharmaceutical Industries CEO, who’s been working with Moffatt on the changeover for the past month.

Moffatt joined the company in 1993 as national finance and operations manager and held a series of key roles before making history in 2013 when he became the first non-Japanese MD of both Bridgestone companies.

He says he steps down with Bridgestone in good shape: “We are the leading tyre company in Australia and NZ and are considered the most trusted brand by consumers in both countries. I believe we have respect in the industry for our customer service, good environmental practices, focus on safety, quality products and for continuously evolving our commercial business solutions offering.

“Bridgestone is ready for whatever the future brings. There are a number of exciting developments planned and in progress that will keep us ahead of industry trends and innovation and strengthen our status as Australia and NZ’s leading tyre company.”

12 | Truck & Driver

In his time in Bridgestone, Moffatt has seen significant growth in the Bridgestone retail store network, to more than 450 locations across Australia and NZ. He played a hands-on role in 2000’s acquisition of Bandag Manufacturing, which has since become a core component of Bridgestone’s Total Tyre Management programme.

Under Moffatt, Bridgestone has been active in a number of charities, including Leukaemia & Blood Cancer NZ, in road safety education, and environmental stewardship.

Roche led top 200 ASX company Australian Pharmaceutical Industries for over 10 years, heading the growth of 450 Priceline stores in Australia and a turnover in excess of $AUS3.8billion. Roche also initiated and chaired The Priceline Sisterhood Foundation, a charity supporting women and their families across Australia. T&D

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NEWS

New Volvo regional boss VOLVO TRUCKS HAS A NEW BOSS FOR AUSTR ALIA, New Zealand and Oceania – with current Volvo Group Australia president Peter Voorhoeve promoted to lead the company in the important North American market.

Voorhoeve will be replaced next month by Volvo Trucks’ senior vice president retail development in Sweden, Martin Merrick – who’s been with the company for 30 years.

Merrick will bring “an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience, having started his involvement with Volvo from the very outset of his career in sales, while working in a Volvo truck and bus dealership in Scotland,” says Heléne Mellquist, senior vice president Volvo Trucks International.

“This early grounding means he fundamentally understands the needs of our customers, which he has translated to drive invaluable customerfocused initiatives in his numerous leadership roles at Volvo.

“His appointment to lead Volvo Group Australia will build on the market-leading results already achieved in Australia and NZ. We look forward to Martin bringing his in-depth industry knowledge and rich customer insight to further grow these crucial markets.”

Martin Merrick

Merrick says that Australia and NZ “continue to be lead markets for us in areas such as R&D – particularly in developing products to suit the quite unique needs of local customers.”

In his latest role he has been responsible for “delivering a premium retail customer experience through the dealer network, driving digital transformation and developing competence to match the needs of the retail operations,” says Volvo. T&D

Contractors concerned NEW ZEALAND’S CIVIL CONTRACTORS WELCOME A record level of investment in transport, but are concerned at a medium-term “construction gap” in the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport.

The gap risks the industry losing Kiwi civil construction capability and capacity to overseas markets.

Civil Contractors NZ chief executive Peter Silcock says that the potential $2billion gap will occur between 2019-2022 as investment shifts from completion of major state highway construction projects to construction of rapid transit and public transport projects – which won’t really ramp up until post-2022.

Investment in rapid and public transport before 2022 would more than likely be on planning, land acquisition, design, consenting and procurement rather than construction, Silcock says.

“We understand there is a change in focus with the current Government.

We support this, and commend an increasing focus on regional development, road safety and sustainability. But these projects need to happen in a way

that retains capability and capacity within the industry.”

Silcock says the gap as it stands is likely to result in a loss of capacity and capability, particularly to Australia as large infrastructure projects ramp up across the Tasman.

He says that the latest policy statement is not without its merits, praising changes from the draft that will increase investment in the country’s vital transport networks “and smooth out an unattainable spike in construction of rapid transit that would have forced contractors to recruit from overseas.

“The increased continuity of work would make it more attractive for contractors to train and develop Kiwi expertise to do the rapid transit work required,” he says.

“It’s very important we have a steady workflow, and we’re glad this is starting to gain recognition. We’ve been talking with Minister Twyford regularly, and what we need to do now is bring shovel-ready projects forward to fill the gap and ensure we keep the skills we need to get the job done.” T&D Truck & Driver | 15

8:55 AM

NEWS

Weather signs back on the Kaimais WEATHER-ACTIVATED VARIABLE SPEED limit signs on State Highway 29, over the Kaimai Ranges, have been reinstalled.

The signs were temporarily shut down because of vandalism in May, which saw batteries, storage cabinets and cameras stolen or damaged.

It cost $75,000 to repair and replace the equipment, says the New Zealand Transport Agency, which has increased security on the signs by installing anti-theft measures,

including alarms and surveillance, on the cabinetry.

“The signs were put in place in an effort to reduce the number of people being killed or seriously injured on SH29 over the Kaimai Range,” says NZTA project team manager John McCarthy.

They were designed “to encourage people to drive at safe speeds that are appropriate to the road conditions when rain, ice and fog hit the Kaimai Range.”

Data shows that over 70% of the crashes on the Range happen in wet weather, and that over 40% of these were caused by drivers travelling too fast for the conditions.

A trial of the signs began in November 2015 – results from their first year of operation showing that there was a reduction in the number and severity of crashes, says the NZTA. T&D

The signs are activated by bad weather conditions on the SH29 route across the Kaimai Ranges

Lubricant packaging recycling scheme launched MAJOR LUBRICANT INDUSTRY brands are calling on importers and distributors to join them in tackling the issue of millions of lubricant packages being discarded every year.

A Waste Lubricant Container Product Stewardship Scheme has been established to explore recycling options for lubricant containers.

The 3R Group, manager of the project to “close the loop” on lubricant packaging and help develop a circular economy in New Zealand, estimates that around seven million lubricant and grease containers up to 20-litre capacity are sent to landfills each year – plus an unknown number of 200-litre drums.

“Considering that most lubricant containers

are manufactured from high density polyethylene (HDPE) or metal – both highly recyclable after pre-treatment, this provides the ideal opportunity to capture these resources onshore,” says 3R chief executive Adele Rose.

To achieve this, members intend to work together as part of a voluntary, industry-led scheme to recover, reuse and recycle waste lubricant containers for urban and rural customers. This will maximise the number of containers diverted from landfill and reduce the need for virgin resin imports.

3R was approached by Z Energy earlier this year to facilitate an industry working group to develop stewardship for waste lubricant

container recycling. Initial meetings with the industry made it clear a nationwide solution was needed.

And now Z Energy has been joined by companies including Aegis Oil, Allied Lubricants, Castrol NZ, Farmlands (Gulf Oil), Lubricants NZ (Vertex and Elf ), Oil Intel (Total Lubricants), Penrite Oil and Valvoline.

Other brands are expected to join up over the coming months.

“The scheme will create a united industry position that will help bring positive behavioural change to the way that waste lubricant packaging has traditionally been disposed of,” Rose says. T&D

16 | Truck & Driver

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NEWS

Foodstuffs North Island says it makes over 4000 deliveries a week to its network of almost 350 supermarkets and grocery stores

Foodstuffs transforms its transport RETAIL GROCERY GIANT Foodstuffs North Island says it is transforming its transportation and logistics management with a leading global supply chain software supplier.

The country’s largest retail grocery organisation has adopted JDA Software’s Transportation Management programme to improve operational efficiencies “and drive industry best practices.”

Ensuring that its millions of customers “can get what they want is critical to Foodstuffs North Island, and equally important is the ability to transport products efficiently and economically,” says JDA. The JDA system will, it says, provide a single platform to plan transportation and provide visibility across Foodstuffs’ network.

“Foodstuffs is already reaping benefits by

having a common system and standard processes across their transportation business.

“Over time, JDA will help Foodstuffs optimise costs via route consolidation, load optimisation and by adopting leading practices in logistics management.”

Foodstuffs North Island has a network of almost 350 PAK’nSAVE, New World, Four Square, Fresh Collective and Gilmours stores.

“JDA is a valuable partner in our supply chain transformation journey,” says Gareth McFarlane, acting supply chain GM for Foodstuffs North Island.

The company makes over 4000 deliveries per week, and the JDA platform will “enable us to improve efficiency and utilisation of time and space to deliver on our customer promise.”

Using the JDA programme, Foodstuffs

“expects to see an increase in transit visibility for freight movements, route and load optimisation, carrier metrics and support data to aid in carrier management discussions, reduction in manual processes and improved team productivity, among other benefits.

“The ability to make real-time decisions enables the teams to drive greater agility and responsiveness in meeting customer needs.”

More than 4000 global customers use JDA’s end-to-end software and SaaS solutions “to unify and shorten their supply chains, increase speed of execution, and profitably deliver to their customers.”

The United States-headquartered company’s clients include 76 of the world’s top 100 retailers, 77 of the top 100 consumer goods companies, and eight of the top 10 global 3PLs. T&D

Below-par highways a problem

TD28424

QUALITY ISSUES ON OUR NEW MOTORWAYS ARE becoming an epidemic and the New Zealand Transport Agency must get on top of the problem, says Road Transport Forum chief executive Ken Shirley.

“Evidence that the brand-new Waikato Expressway is developing ruts and breaking up comes hard on the heels of similar build quality issues with the new Kapiti highway and proves that there is an endemic problem with the way NZTA manages its roading projects,” says Shirley.

“These projects cost motorists and commercial road transport operators hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars – paid for through fuel excise and road user charges. The very least NZers should expect is that the

projects are undertaken to a reasonable minimum standard.

“We can’t have a situation where, after a few months, the surface starts deteriorating because water has been allowed to seep into the seal. Yes, occasionally we have some extreme weather events…such as Cyclone Gita – but resilience to those must surely be built into project planning and supervision.”

Shirley adds: “The question needs to be asked as to whether NZTA actually has the technical competencies to ensure that the contracted work meets the required specifications.

“The Agency needs to start focusing on its core role of properly building, maintaining and managing our state highway network.” T&D Truck & Driver | 19

Shacklock ro Photos Gerald un M ne ay W y or St

This big hill on State Highway 16 presents a tough challenge for the UD Quon’s ESCOT-VI AMT, left in automated mode. It does well enough that it just might have changed owner Mike Steed’s mind about not trusting the Volvo Group gearbox to do its own thing much of the time

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Recent rain makes the steep climb out of the Port Albert quarry greasy underfoot – a good test for the Quon’s traction

A

MAN GOES UP THE HILL A SKEPTIC….AND COMES BACK DOWN a believer. Well….maybe not actually a complete convert – but at least more inclined to believe it’s possible.

Believe, that is, that the automated manual transmission in his new UD Quon just might be as good as him at managing the gearshifts on steep and windy hills.

Like the big one we encounter on State Highway 16 – the Kaipara Coast Highway, between Helensville and Wellsford, north of Auckland.

When I asked McAllister Cartage owner Mike Steed 20 minutes back if he’d mind leaving the ESCOT-VI AMT to do its own thing on the hills ahead, he shot me a you’ve-gotta-be-joking look.

My point is that the AMT should be able to manage the hills just fine – automatically, autonomously: It is, after all, UD’s adaptation of the highly-regarded, well-proven Volvo I-Shift.

His point of view is that while he’s really happy with the automated manual trans, he’s also sure that it’s better to drive it in manual mode “most of the time – when it’s loaded. Just because (otherwise) it changes gear too much.

“I’ve tried it – yep…..but I just prefer manual. Then you can hold the gear longer…” So far, he concedes, he hasn’t left it to do its own thing on a big hill – and he explains why: “I’m kind of new to trucking (he’s been driving for 10 years)…..and it’s my first automated manual – so I can’t yet drive it up to its full potential.”

Putting the UD’s 11-litre engine, AMT and hill hold start system to the test on a steep gradient with 28 tonnes on its back (we’re at 44t all-up) – and risk having it grind to a halt – is clearly NOT what he wants to be doing with his month-old truck!

But then he did it anyway – on a good climb on Port Albert Road, as we headed back to SH16 after picking up a truck and trailer load of lime rock at the Port Albert Quarry.

That hill-climbing experience wasn’t exactly convincing – in that the ESCOT-VI upshifted from 10th to 11th at one point…then, just 10 seconds later, had to drop two gears to recover.

“Now, I would’ve held that,” said Mike. Seven seconds later it was back up to 10th – just as we were about to take a tight bend on the hill.

It needed to quickly drop down two gears again, so we ended up in eighth.

We climbed on – the AMT picking up a couple of gears, one at a time…but only holding 10th for 10s before it had to drop a gear again.

From there to the top of the hill, it sensibly worked its way down, with single shifts, to sixth at 20km/h – and fifth just moments before we had to stop at the SH16 intersection. It did it – just too busily.

Mike didn’t make a big deal of it, but reckoned he probably would have come up in 8th – manually downshifting if necessary. The AMT, he said, is “basically not really programmed for these hills. Like how the (early HD) Mitsis weren’t.”

Still, he’s now happy to humour me and keep the AMT in automated mode for the sake of our test on a series of steep climbs on SH16.

Again, things don’t get off to the perfect start: We’re sitting on 80km/h in 11th when the AMT upshifts into top gear (12th) just before the start of the climb. Within eight seconds it’s forced to drop two gears as the hill bites.

It’s the only mis-step though – the next three single-gear downshifts come crisp as you like over the next 30 seconds, before we settle for a bit in 7th gear at 30km/h and 1700rpm.

There’s an upshift to 8th when we’re almost at the top of the first part of the hill – and it’s one shift that Mike wouldn’t have made, because the next climb to the top is quite steep…but he’s pulling over to the side of the road here anyway, where the hill plateaus, to let following traffic go by.

Restarting, the AMT works its way up into 11th gear before a 45k corner slows progress and the climb resumes. That provokes five quick, single-gear downshifts over the next 30 seconds – so we’re in 6th, Mike accurately predicting it will hold this to the top of this sharpish climb.

One more steep pinch prompts another shift, to 5th – and then we start picking up speed and gears before arriving at the lookout over the Kaipara Harbour in 8th.

Now, pulling over for a brief break, Mike’s showing signs of being won over….well, in part, at least.

So what would he have come up here in, if he’d selected manual Truck & Driver | 23

mode – making the shifts simply by nudging the button on the side of the shift control?

“Ah, it’s hard to say eh.” This is, after all the new Quon’s first loaded run on this road. But there’s a hint of newfound respect for the AMT: “That’s not too bad.”

And he adds – tellingly maybe, showing another sign of wavering from his automated mode preference: “It’s quick with its gearchanges isn’t it. You notice when it’s on a hill it’s a lot faster than when it’s going along on the flat. So it adjusts itself.”

He will, he says, give the ESCOT-VI a bit more of a go – allow it the opportunity to prove itself in a few different situations. See if he might end up closer to UD Trucks’ recommendation – of driving it in automated mode for all but the trickiest terrain, where a driver’s ability to see exactly what’s ahead can sometimes beat an intelligent, but blind, AMT. Although the 36-year-old Steed repeatedly says he’s “hopeless with technology,” that doesn’t mean he’d rather go without the Quon’s hightech features: He’s more than happy that UD decided to load the Quon with much of the latest technology that the Volvo Group has on offer….

And that UD Truck Distributors NZ, staying true to the parent company’s approach, is including them as part of the standard spec on the Kiwi Quon.

It has a lane departure warning system, which sounds a warning if the truck leaves its lane without the driver indicating. And it has stability control (traction control) – and radar-managed adaptive cruise control (backed up by a cab-mounted camera), which will autonomously

24 | Truck & Driver

maintain a preset gap to the vehicle ahead to avoid a collision.

Part of that Traffic Eye Brake System is autonomous emergency braking: It’ll warn the driver that a collision is imminent – and if there’s no driver-initiated braking, it’ll do it itself.

There’s hill start assistance, disc brakes all-around, LED headlights and brake blending – whereby a dab on the brake pedal prompts the truck to call on a balance between the foundation brakes and engine braking for optimal stopping power.

And then, to save fuel, there’s ESCOT Roll, which puts the AMT into neutral when the truck’s coasting, the prevention of harsh acceleration (unless an ECO Off switch is selected) and a driver-coaching system, which displays advice on how to achieve improved fuel economy.

What it amounts to is an unprecedented level of world-class technology in a Japanese truck, UD reckons – even suggesting, in fact, that it “redefines the Japanese heavy-duty truck” with its levels of driveability, safety and fuel efficiency.

The funny thing is that none of that stuff was at the forefront of his mind when Mike Steed went looking for a new truck late last year.

He’d been wanting a new truck for a while, he reckons, but he and wife Toni had agreed that’d have to wait till they’d paid off the McAllister Cartage business they bought four years ago.

The Silverdale operation, which Mike had been driving for, was sold to the Steeds in tragic circumstances – after Dion McAllister was killed in a motorcycle accident in late 2013. The business had come with three Mitsubishis – 2007 and 2009 370hp 6x4s and a 2003 model 350 – all running manual gearboxes.

But last year, the 350 started to become troublesome – “just lots of little things were going wrong. It was always in the shop, getting fixed.

The maintenance bill was getting up there, you know,” Mike explains.

“And the accountant said ‘well, what’s your answer to this!’ Me being a smart-arse, I said ‘a new truck.’ And he goes ‘yes, that’s right.’ I was off the next day looking for a new truck!”

What he wanted mostly in that new truck was a good, reliable workhorse with two very down-to-earth, practical features – a low cab height and just two steps to get in and out.

The low cab is important when a lot of your work is on residential developments and properties: “When you’re getting down tight driveways, under eaves of houses….overhanging trees, you don’t want to be scratching a new truck!” he explains.

“You do get into some horrible driveways that you have to back down and stuff. And overhead trees! I get so angry: ‘Why didn’t you tell me there were overhanging trees!’ ” And the two steps make for easy entry and exit lots of times a day – typical in the bulk tipper work he does around his home area.

“I went to Isuzu, went to Scania – had a look at them and went ‘whoah! They look expensive’ and drove out.

“It was mainly between Isuzu and Nissan – and there was a couple of things I didn’t like about the Isuzus – that third step was one of them.

Fuso has a third step as well. And I’d heard a lot about their automated transmission.”

He actually tried to buy the outgoing-model 420hp UD, “but I was about an hour too late” to get the last one available in Auckland: “I wanted it because it was here – didn’t have to wait.”

He reckons there wasn’t much difference in the price of the old-model 420 and the new 460 – and much the same between the comparable models from other makes. So the Quon was ordered.

Given Mike’s purely practical reasons for buying a Quon, it’s not much of a surprise that, after just a handful of weeks of learning first-hand about its leading-edge features, he reckons “I’m still getting used to it.”

And, he adds: “It’s maybe a bit too high-tech for me!”

Even so, he’s still sure he made the right buying decision: “I love it eh. Totally different power though – just all torque.”

The 460hp/338kW GH11TD engine in the GW 26 460 model Mike has bought – with 2200Nm/1622 lb ft of peak torque – is the most powerful rating that the Volvo Group has okayed for use by UD, avoiding any Volvo v UD rivalry in the marketplace. There’s also a 390hp/287kW variant with 1750Nm/1290 lb ft and a 420hp/309kW alternative, with 1900Nm/1401 lb ft.

The 460hp engine develops its peak power at 1800rpm and optimum torque at 1200-1400rpm, but has 400hp of that power from 1300 to 2000 revs. And the torque band sees 2000Nm/1475 lb ft over a much wider range – starting at 900rpm and extending right up to 1600.

UD says that the 11-litre engine achieves the Japanese pPNLT (postpost new long term) exhaust emissions standard using a combination of SCR and EGR technologies. The standard, it adds, is tougher than Euro 6.

The Japanese branch of the Volvo Group reckons that its new fuel injection system and reshaped combustion chamber also sees it “exceed Japanese fuel economy standards by 5%.”

The only transmission option is the Volvo Group’s 12-speed AMT – an I Shift by another name. In UD’s case, it’s an ESCOT-VI. The UD RTS2370A rear axles are suspended on parabolic leaf springs with a rubber cushion (electronic air suspension is optional), with parabolic leaf springs on the steer axle. The cab sits on airbags.

We meet up with Mike and his 6x4 Quon at the McAllister Silverdale yard, where he effortlessly tips the cab for a look-see at the engine in

The climb up and out of the quarry, with the combination at 44 tonnes, is a tough way to start a loaded run, but the AMT handles it well

Truck & Driver | 25

Above left: Mike Steed is clearly proud of his first brand-new truck

Above right: A low cab height for working on sometimes-difficult residential sites, with overhanging eaves and trees and just two steps for easy entry and exit were Mike’s two main requirements

its UD guise. Effortlessly because it’s all done with an electric-hydraulic lift. The first time he tried it, he says, was a bit worrying: It tilts so far forward that “we were like ‘is it gonna stop….is it gonna stop!’ ” It does.

It’s a good-looking truck, with angular lines shared with its Volvo stablemate – which seems fair enough, since they share so much else.

The frontal styling is distinctive – like a wedge that tapers slightly, from top to bottom.

The truck has a steel tipper body built by the local TBK Engineering, with finishing touches including a Mike-ordered headboard, steps up onto the truck chassis and the bin and a purposebuilt shovel bracket. It tows a 19-year-old Transport Trailers four-axle alloy trailer.

The truck runs on Alcoa Dura-Bright alloy wheels, with Roadlux R302 295/80R 22.5 steer tyres and Goodride AT557 385 65R 22.5s on the drivers. There’s a 400-litre alloy fuel tank and a 50-litre AdBlue tank.

Access in and out of the snug but comfortable (and modern) cab is via Mike’s all-important two steps, aided by good grabhandles. Three of ‘em, in fact – two on the right-hand side on the driver’s entry, one down low, one high. Then there’s a long vertical one on the left side.

Showing his practical approach to things, Mike reckons: “The thing I like about the steps is they’re real sturdy. You can bang your dirty boots on them.”

You couldn’t call it roomy inside the two-tone grey cab, what with the usual engine intrusion into the cab no doubt accentuated by the lower cab height – but it’s not cramped either. Mike says that he’s very comfortable in the CVG air-suspended driver’s seat, with “heaps” of fore-aft adjustment, even with the skinny-ish bunk behind it in the sleeper cab.

Unexpectedly, he has actually used the bunk already – just a few 26 | Truck & Driver

days ago: “I hopped on there and had a sleep because I had to wait so long – an hour and a half – on a site.”

There’s a real wraparound feel to the extended dash, with a big turnout to the left carrying the infotainment screen, an R/T slot, aircon controls and the like. The turnout flows back past the mounting for the simple fore-aft ESCOT-VI mode shift lever, into a storage bin in the centre console, supplementing the stowage space provided by a locker up above the windscreen.

The tipper controls have been located high above the centre console – in a posi that best suits a shoulder problem Mike’s nursing.

Driver comfort-wise there are even little extras like a one-bottle cooler box – or drink warmer. Even the seemingly standard drink-holder will cool or heat drinks.

Mike reckons that the stereo and the aircon are “really good” and everything important in the way of controls is within easy reach – with multiple functions right on the steering wheel.

Controls for the cruise control and adaptive cruise (including setting the preferred distance to the vehicle ahead) are also on the steering wheel – along with one particular switch that Mike didn’t know about when he first got the truck.

“I was thinking ‘oh it’s actually quite gutless for a 460!’ And then a mate of mine, who’s got the previous-model UD, says ‘oh you really want to turn that economy mode (for the AMT) off.’ I said ‘oh, what’s that!’ ” The ECO Off button on the steering wheel is now pretty much engaged all the time.

The buttons on the right-hand side of the steering wheel control the five-inch colour LCD multi-display in the centre of the black and silver dash, between the speedo and tacho.

Vision of the dials is aided by the restyled steering wheel – its four

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He continues to sub-contract to Golden much of the time – including the run we’re heading off on in the new Quon, heading west to SH16 via Waitoki.

This is typical of the kind of work that the Quon and the other McAllister trucks do, five or six days a week – carting a lot of sand and gravel from quarries around this lower Northland region…and sometimes venturing as far south as the Hunua quarry.

Mike’s trucks help keep Silverdale Aggregates supplied with its full range of bulk products, they cart to residential and commercial subdivisions, to roadworks and other major construction projects and do a lot of work under diggers on jobs big and small.

Auckland traffic is something he has to live with, work around: If there’s a load of metal to be picked up from the Hunua quarry, south of Auckland, for instance, he’ll leave at 4am, to be there at five. Even so, “coming back…the motorway’s stopped at six o’clock.”

He regularly runs north to the Whangaripo Quarry, northeast of Wellsford, and gets some benefit out of the AMT and the adaptive cruise up and down SH1.

There was one technology glitch early on with the Quon – on its first metal spreading job: “They hadn’t reset the computer to tell it that it had a live-drive – so I couldn’t change gears with the bin up!” Making things really difficult, it was “way in the back-blocks. Gravel, mud…. steep.”

A quick reprogramming quickly fixed that – and since then Mike’s been delighted with the ESCOT-VI: “It makes life so much easier when you’re spreading. Auto and that live-drive. You can just creep on up a hill. That just makes the day so much easier. No changing gears and stopping…”

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spokes all in the lower half of the wheel. Mike also says that all the dials on the new dash are easy to see – as are the switches for various functions….except for the PTO controls. The saving grace there is that when they’re engaged that does show on the dash.

Forward and rear vision is also good, thanks to the large windscreen, the shaped A-pillars and good mirrors. Says Mike: “The mirrors? Yeah I love them eh – and the two top are electric.” He particularly appreciates the overhead mirror on the passenger side – “that’s handy” on tight work sites.

The headlights are good – even without Mike yet having had the opportunity (or the need) to use them on high-beam.

He runs through all of this a little like a proud Dad and you can sense that the purchase of this new UD is a big deal for the Steeds – second only to buying the business.

Mike had been driving for McAllister Cartage for seven years prior to Dion McAllister’s death and was initially asked by Dion’s Dad John to run the business for them…and soon after that was offered the opportunity to buy it.

He reckons he was shocked: “I said ‘geez, I can’t afford that!’ But he says ‘oh no – I think you can.’ And he told me the price, so I told the wife and she goes ‘oh well, we’ll have a talk about it and have a think.’ ” He laughs at that and confesses that “by that time I’d already said ‘yes!’ Yeah, so I was trying to go to the bank, get a loan and organise things – and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, or who I had to talk to.”

He credits another Silverdale operator, Mark (Skip) Golden, with helping him – before he bought the business…and since: “I talked to Skip….and he put me onto someone. Like, he’s helped me out a lot

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Clockwise, from top right: The four-spoke steering wheel carries a good suite of controls – and provides a clear view of the main dash display....the cab isn’t roomy, but then again it is comfy, with a real wraparound feel....Mike’s already had a nap on the bunk while waiting for a load....the centre display between the tacho and speedo presents everything from warnings to fuel efficient driving coaching messages

As we drive, the AMT and the engine brake are mostly all Mike needs to slow for corners, roadworks and intersections. So how are the foundation brakes, featuring discs all around: “Good. Had a close call on the Dairy Flat Highway the other day. Someone decided to turn right, right in front of me….just over a bridge, just after a downhill. So there was nowhere to go.

“I thought ‘oh no, what’s gonna happen here!’ But I just pushed it (the brake pedal) to the floor and it didn’t lock up – nothing. Just come to a stop.”

There was, he remembers now, one other thing that had to be put right with the Quon’s electronics: A reset of its driver coaching and rating system that judges the fuel efficiency of your driving – providing current fuel economy offering advice on how to improve.

“For example, ‘Avoid heavy acceleration to save fuel.’ Or, when you put it in manual mode: ‘Use Automatic to save fuel.’

“When I first got it, where it tells you how good your driving is, everything was red – meaning you’re a bad driver!” Then he learnt that it was set for relatively flat highway running in Japan!

It takes us around an hour and a quarter to make it to the quarry at Port Albert, where things are pretty slushy on the quarry floor. An old Mack is parked up, with the cab slightly tilted. It looks like it’s come to grief – and an ominous oil slick suggests that’s exactly what’s happened.

Mike has his own concerns – like my request to do things with the ESCOT-VI in automated mode, as he eyes the slushy, steep hill out of the quarry: “We should get up that hill. Should be right. This is a good challenge.” He sounds a little like he’s trying to convince himself.

With 10.5 tonnes of lime rock loaded into the truck and 17.5t on the trailer, we’re at 44t all-up as Mike engages the diff locks and we ease off, the AMT holding in fourth gear at just under 2000rpm, at about 15km/h.

Happily it doesn’t try any upshifting – obviously sensing the demands of the load, the hill and the greasy surface: “It’s slippery,” Mike confirms. Even a minute into the slow climb out the wheels are “still slipping here a little bit.”

This, he says, is the second-toughest traction test the Quon has had so far: He has had to be towed on one steep, muddy site, but he’s very impressed that it gets up this quarry road no problem.

It confirms his impression that this has better traction than most other trucks he’s worked with and around. On a spreading job he did with the Quon at Bethells Beach the UD did it “so easy – even up steep hills. You just put the little bloody traction control in…lock the whole back end up. It doesn’t lose traction – at all.

“I was one of the only ones that did it….all the other trucks got stuck.” Some needed to be towed out, others just had to back up and try again – then made it: “But this just cruised on through. I just put all the locks in and you could feel when it was skidding a little bit, so you just eased off on the throttle.”

The AMT’s hill tests on our loaded run back to Silverdale are interrupted by news for Mike that his other two trucks are parked-up for the next one and a half to two hours: Rain has just forced the project manager on one site they’re working on to close the access for the day.

And the digger at the other job they’re on has just broken down and is awaiting a repairman.

Truck & Driver | 31

Clockwise, from top left: The Volvo Group 11-litre engine is capped at 460hp for UD, but gives the make a viable powerplant for this sort of work....electric hydraulic lift makes tilting the cab effortless....Mike tips off the load of lime rock at Silverdale

Mike reports that the trailer, old though it may be, tracks and handles well when loaded – even if it isn’t so user-friendly when it’s empty and on wet roads: “But that’s easily fixed – just back off a little bit.”

On a steep downhill closing in on Kaukapakapa, the engine brake – on the fourth and strongest stage – holds the combination at ninth, at 60k and 2000rpm….with just a dab on the brake pedal.

Mike rates the UD’s retardation as “bloody good.” It doesn’t match the 470hp Scania he was driving for Mark Golden until the Quon arrived – but then, that had a driveline retarder.

He likes the brake blending feature too – whereby a touch on the brake pedal sees the system use a mix of engine brake and the disc brakes for optimal retardation.

A stop in Kaukapakapa sees us resume, the AMT starting in second and taking two gears at a time up to eighth, then one gear at a time. The noteworthy thing is just how effortlessly the 11-litre engine manages it with 44t of weight to move.

One thing that Mike will have checked at its imminent first service (it’s done 5300 kilometres) is the AMT’s tendency to start in fifth gear, even when it’s fully loaded….and then, in the middle of a busy day, how it defaults to starting in first. He wants it reset to start in third all the time.

UD Truck Distributors NZ GM John Gerbich is “excited” about the Quon – and not only because it gives the make a heavy-duty 8x4 for the first time in five years. It’s also more than the fact that the Volvo Group is allowing an increase in horsepower – up from the former 420hp maximum.

Says Gerbich: “Well the beauty about this is we’ve been able to tap into all of the latest in Group technology. While they’ve capped our horsepower at 460hp maximum, we’ve been able to take everything else” – from the Volvo Group technology cupboard, that is.

“I mean, the ESCOT-VI is the latest Group transmission, the engine is Euro 6 – and it’s been our decision to take every single safety feature that was available to us as standard…

32 | Truck & Driver

“It wasn’t a hard decision to make: As an industry we get a lot of bad press. I think that the features in these trucks will make drivers better at their jobs – make it easier to do their jobs.

“And price-wise – well, the UD product has never been the cheapest in the market. And surprisingly, while I’m not going to tell you what those extra features cost, they’re probably not as expensive as you think they are.”

Currently there are 4x2 and 6x4 trucks here in each of the power ratings – and 8x4s in 420hp only, so far. A 460hp twin-steer will become available in the third quarter of this year.

Already there’s a backlog of orders for the Quons and Gerbich says the company is budgeting on around 150 sales in the first 12 months.

So far as the ESCOT-VI’s performance during our test goes, Gerbich suggests that pushing the throttle hard to the floor, into kickdown mode on a steep hillclimb, will stop the transmission upshifting prematurely.

He accepts that, in getting the best out of the AMT, while in general drivers should “leave it alone to do its job….there may be the odd occasion where it may be better to drive it in manual.”

He points out that this transmission has been available in UD’s lowerhorsepower trucks for about six years and typically many drivers initially prefer manual mode, but “once they understand that it’s a smart bit of kit they leave it alone. The Group’s got a lot of technology built into these trucks. It is a very, very smart transmission.”

But the last word on the new Quon comes from Mike Steed – the man who’s not much into technology…but who bought what UD reckons is the most high-tech Japanese truck available.

What, I ask, is he most happy with in the Quon? “Pretty much everything really! The comfort, the steering lock on it’s amazing. The gearchanging. I’ve noticed that everything is easy with this.

“Just because it’s got THAT (as he points to the AMT shifter). It’s made it so easy.”

And that sounds like a man who’s been converted. T&D

Why wait?

6 week delivery!

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$119,800 + GST

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www.tmc-trailers.co.nz YEARS

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Christchurch

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Finance available:

Design includes:

Prices are for standard TMC build spec and are valid for one month from magazine publication date. Delivery dates quoted based on standard build, while stock lasts.

Trailer images above are sample only and may include some non-standard options.

Finance subject to approval.

• High-tensile chassis offering reduced tare weight & increased strength.

TMC’s standard t&c’s apply.

• Disc brakes, air suspension, Wabco EBS brakes, forged polished alloy wheels.

• Semi-trailers suitable for 1200mm – 1250mm turntables.

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• Nationwide support from TMC’s Auckland & Christchurch workshops & authorised service agents.

Trevor Test

I

T’S A TYPICAL RUN FOR McALLISTER Cartage owner Mike Steed – up to Wellsford for a load out of Rodney Aggregates’ Whangaripo Quarry, and then back to Silverdale.

We meet Mike at Millwater, just off State Highway One north of Silverdale, for the run north for the load of GAP20.

It’s my second time in the cab of a new UD Quon, after an introduction day at the Pukekohe motor racing circuit, so I’m familiar with the layout of the cab and really looking forward to seeing how the new truck performs in real work conditions rather than just driving around a flat track.

Climbing into the cab is pretty easy with only a couple of well-spaced steps to negotiate and excellent grabhandles front and back.

Once in the cab a quick look around confirms the handy placement of all the major controls and highlights the work that has gone into this model to improve the ergonomics.

The dash layout is very user friendly, with the speedometer and tachometer display immediately in front of the driver, with a digital information screen between them and gearshift information and engine brake display below.

Controls on the steering wheel to the left cover cruise control and the distance selection switch

34 | Truck & Driver

for the Traffic Eye Cruise control and on the right, the controls for the digital display.

Steering column stalks control engine brake application, wipers, indicators, headlights etc.

It’s a very comfortable driving position for me – but maybe a bit tight for a really tall driver, with no further rearward movement in the seat from where I set it. However, there is really good legroom, with just brake and throttle pedals, so it’s easy to get comfortable.

UD claims that this cab has been designed for the driver and that shows in the simple but comfortable driving position and layout.

Our run north is a good chance to get to know the truck while it’s running empty and in very bad weather. The drive feels stable and there’s no significant bouncing, as is sometimes encountered in an empty truck.

As we enter the quarry there’s a slight slope, with a significant amount of pig-rooting bumps. But by easing off on the throttle the truck runs over them smoothly, with very good

traction.

Mike says he’s consistently got in and out of sites where other trucks have become stuck, so he’s very confident in the truck’s traction and feels that the smooth delivery of power from the ESCOT-VI transmission is a major contributor to this.

Another benefit Mike has discovered is the UD’s great turning circle: He’s regularly able to get around in one turn while other trucks need to take multiple bites at it.

We quickly load and head off back at 44 tonnes all-up. The drive out to SH1 is a very winding road, with plenty of slow corners and I find it easy to control the entry speed into bends with the engine brake and very little need to use the service brakes. It’s a road that gets plenty of truck

traffic so it’s not the smoothest of surfaces, but the suspension handles it well and the ride is very comfortable.

Steering is very positive, and it tracks very well, with very little correction needed on the straight sections despite the uneven surface. It’s not a wide road either but the mirrors give a very good view down the sides of the truck and trailer, making it easy to position them on the road. It’s the usual mirror setup with a large, flat upper mirror and a convex lower mirror to give added visual area.

Once out on SH1 we really get the chance to see how the GH11TD UD engine performs in league with the ESCOT-VI AMT. The engine’s rated at 460hp and develops 2200Nm of torque at 1200rpm.

We’re straight into Dome Valley and the truck quickly picks up speed to 80km/h, which is the speed limit through here.

We hit our first real hill at the southern end of the valley as we climb up and out of it. We drop back to 8th gear, pulling 1520rpm and doing 35k up the passing lane at the top of the climb.

Dropping down the other side towards Warkworth I use 8th gear and stage four on the engine brake for the descent and the retarder works well, needing only an occasional touch on the service brakes. So the old theory of going down the hills in the same gear as you go up them certainly works on this truck.

Warkworth produces its usual congestion, with the additional obstacle of roadworks on the main road, right in the middle of the town. This really makes you appreciate the AMT. The gearshifts are quick and clean and I drive the whole trip in auto, apart from a couple of

descents where I use manual to hold a specific gear as I trial the engine brake.

The next climb is up from the Redwoods onto Windy Ridge and once again it drops down into 8th gear, pulling 1500 rpm and 32km/h – slowly picking up a few more revs as we move up the hill. Dropping down off Windy Ridge we go to 8th – our go-to gear for hills obviously and we come down well under control.

The run back to Silverdale is along the Northern Gateway Motorway and we easily keep pace with the traffic. Noise levels in the cab are great, with almost no noticeable noise from the engine other than the fan kicking-in, particularly during engine braking.

Mike and I can easily hold a conversation without needing to raise our voices and despite the cold driving rain outside we’re very comfortable, with the cab climate control keeping us warm and the screen clear.

This new UD has certainly lifted the bar for Japanese trucks on the New Zealand market. We’ll see others bringing in offerings of this level in the near future, but at present it is possibly the highest-specced truck for safety features in this market.

It’s packed with many of the features we’ve seen in the parent company Volvo’s trucks.

Many operators are specifying advanced safety options for the trucks they buy and UD is catering for them with a very advanced package. It’s limited to a 460hp maximum rating – but that’s fine for this type of application. In fact, it’s a very popular rating with many NZ operators.

Not everybody needs 600hp-plus and the lower horsepower in the right applications will produce better levels of fuel efficiency. T&D

• SPECIFICATIONS • UD TRUCKS GW 26 460 6x4 Engine: UD GH11TD, Euro 6+ Capacity: 11-litres, inline six Maximum power: 338kW (460hp) @ 1800rpm Peak torque: 2200Nm (1623 lb ft) @ 1200rpm Fuel Capacity: 400 litres Transmission: ESCOT-VI 12-speed automated manual Ratios: 1 st – 11.73 2nd – 9.21 3rd – 7.09 4th – 5.57 5th – 4.35 6th – 3.41 7 th – 2.70 8th – 2.12 9th – 1.63 10th – 1.28 11th – 1.00 12th – 0.78 Front axles: UD FAL8.2, rated at 8200kg Rear axles: UD RTS2370A, with diff locks, rated at 18,000kg Auxiliary brake: UD EEB exhaust

The good-looking Quon has something of a Volvo hint to its styling....which seems fair enough seeing as it shares so much else with its Swedish stablemate

and engine brake Front suspension: Parabolic leaf spring Rear suspension: Parabolic leaf spring and rubber cushion GVW: 26,000kg GCM: 60,000kg

Truck & Driver | 35

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Jim Bolger’s last major government appointment was as the first chair of KiwiRail, after it was bought back by the Clark Government in 2008

Fair Pay Agreements headline employment law overhaul O

by Ken Shirley Chief Executive

TD28385 TD27300

Road Transport Forum NZ

VER THE NEXT YEAR OR SO NEW Zealand will experience the biggest changes in industrial relations since the passing of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991.

While it’s not yet clear how much these will affect the road transport industry, it is worth getting our heads around what the Government’s intentions are anyway.

The Government’s big-ticket item is the establishment of a sector-wide bargaining system that would result in the development of Fair Pay Agreements.

These are really just a cute new name for industry or national awards that are being designed to set minimum terms and conditions for all workers in an entire industry or occupation – across the whole country.

Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain LeesGalloway says that “the aim of Fair Pay Agreements is to prevent a race to the bottom, where some employers are

undercut by others who reduce costs through low wages and poor conditions of employment.

“Fair Pay Agreements will help lift wages and conditions and ensure good employers are not disadvantaged by paying reasonable industry-standard wages.”

In what is probably one of Labour’s biggest political coups since coming to office they have managed to convince former National Party Prime Minister Jim Bolger to chair the working group tasked with designing the legislation.

Bolger, many readers will recall, was the Prime Minister responsible for the Employment Contracts Act, which placed greater emphasis on the direct relationship between the employer and the individual employee.

The Employment Contracts Act and the pre-eminence of individual bargaining is partly responsible for shrinking union membership, with the proportion of non-state sector Truck & Driver | 37

THE DRIVING FORCE OF NEW ZEALAND TRUCKING

Business NZ’s Paul Mackay is an expert in NZ industrial relations and will present at the 2018 RTF Conference

Very controversially, the Bill repeals sections of the current law that allows employers to opt out of multi-employer collective bargaining employees who now belong to a union thought to be only around 9%.

Fair Pay Agreements are therefore being set up to challenge the modern trend towards individual bargaining and establish large collective agreements which would apply to all employers and workers in the same industry. Everyone in the same occupation would be awarded the same minimum pay and would then be able to bargain and potentially strike for more.

Bolger’s working group is expected to report back to ministers by the end of the year and it’s highly likely that the Government will look to legislate based on those recommendations in 2019.

Fair Pay Agreements are not the only big changes the Government has in store in the industrial relations area. While the Government may be dithering in other policy areas, unions have been waiting nine long years to get their hands back on the tiller of state and needless to say they are already setting the course when it comes to employment law.

The innocuously titled Employment Relations Amendment Bill, which is already before Parliament, is one of the first major pieces of “structural change” legislation implemented by the new Government and is designed to wind back many of the employment law changes that took place under National.

If passed the Bill will, most notably, restrict 90-day trial periods to businesses with fewer than 20 employees and remove the requirement for a union representative to gain consent from an employer before entering a workplace. It will reinstate the principle that the parties 38 | Truck & Driver

A involved must conclude a collective agreement and removes provision for the Employment Relations Authority to do so. It also reinstates the prescription of rest and meal breaks so that if the timing of breaks is not agreed to as part of bargaining, then they’re to be taken at times specified in the legislation.

Very controversially, the Bill repeals sections of the current law that allows employers to opt out of multi-employer collective bargaining. For sectors that are typically made up of a plethora of small businesses that unions have traditionally struggled to infiltrate – such as road transport or hospitality – this makes it a lot easier to organise across a sector and paves the way for the industry-wide bargaining to be instituted through Fair Pay Agreements.

The Bill also requires employers to provide a collective agreement, union contact details and the option to join the union at the same time as they provide an individual employment agreement to an employee.

This provision is one of the starker illustrations of the Bill’s overall objective to encourage greater unionism and more collective bargaining.

In light of these substantial and far-reaching proposals to change the trajectory of NZ’s industrial relations law, Paul Mackay – Business NZ’s industrial relations expert – will be presenting at the 2018 RTF Conference.

I encourage all members who can make it to Dunedin on September 26 and 27 to come and hear just how the Government’s proposals may affect our industry and, in turn, the wider NZ economy. T&D

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THE DRIVING FORCE OF NEW ZEALAND TRUCKING

Drugged driving data shows something must be done

RTF believes Police should be able to carry out roadside saliva testing as they already do with alcohol breath testing

B

EING INVOLVED IN A FATAL ACCIDENT is a nightmare scenario for every road transport operator, regardless of who is at fault.

Which is why the latest crash data regarding drug-affected drivers should have everyone in our industry concerned.

A recent study of the Crash Analysis System by the Automobile Association has revealed that more road deaths in 2017 involved drivers with drugs in their system than were over the legal alcohol limit.

Seventy-nine drivers who were involved in fatal crashes last year later tested positive for drugs, compared with 70 who were above the legal alcohol limit or refused the test.

“This is the first time that drugs, which include both illegal and medicinal substances, have overtaken alcohol in these statistics,” says Road Transport Forum chief executive Ken Shirley.

“It is an extremely concerning trend and demands that the Government

have another look at the suite of initiatives at their disposal to address drugged driving.”

The AA, which has analysed the data, doesn’t necessarily believe that the numbers indicate an increase in the number of people driving under the influence of drugs – rather that testing is now much more thorough.

“This only reinforces the need to do something. It has obviously been a big problem for a long time and, due to better testing, it’s only now that we’re becoming aware of the true extent of drugged driving in New Zealand,” says Shirley.

RTF agrees with the AA and other road user groups that the Police just don’t have the means to adequately get drugged drivers off the road. Currently, police officers are required to have a strong suspicion of drug use before they can insist on taking suspects to the station for an impairment test.

“The impairment test is very old-fashioned, time-consuming and Truck & Driver | 43

THE DRIVING FORCE OF NEW ZEALAND TRUCKING

The number of drug driving tests conducted in Victoria has increased from 40,000 in 2014 to 100,000 in 2017

hardly what you would call scientific – walk along a straight line, turn around, stand on one leg – that kind of thing,” says Shirley.

“Surely, in the 21st Century, we can be a bit more thorough than that.”

RTF is firmly of the view that the law needs to be changed to allow Police to carry out roadside saliva testing – as they already do with alcohol breath testing.

“This is something that we’ve been advocating for quite some time,” says Shirley. “Back in 2004 at the RTF annual conference a remit was passed that called for random roadside drug testing – and while the government of the day brought in the current physical impairment tests, 14 years on it’s now time to go further.”

This Government seems of two minds when it comes to the issue.

Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter, whose primary responsibility is road safety, has consistently opposed the introduction of roadside saliva testing.

She told Parliament earlier this year: “I have concerns about it and we are looking into it. We need more evidence if we’re going to be sure that we are spending money in the most effective way to deal with the problems that are caused by impairment.”

However, Police Minister Stuart Nash has a different view: “As soon as we get the technology in place I think it has got to be rushed out,” he said in the runup to the 2017 election.

“Because people who are high behind the wheel, I think, are just as much a danger as those who are drunk.”

Says Ken Shirley: “It will be interesting to see how the Government handles this obvious disagreement. Will Labour let one of its support partners hold sway again or will Nash be allowed to provide the Police with the tools to make our roads safer.”

Shirley acknowledges that there are some concerns with the accuracy of saliva testing, but points out that – just like alcohol breath testing – it would only be used as an indicative test, before more thorough testing is carried out to determine the level of drugs in a driver’s system.

“The other problem we hear of with current saliva testing equipment 44 | Truck & Driver

is that it only detects common drugs like cannabis, methamphetamine and Ecstasy.”

But Shirley is unconcerned about that: “Surely we’re better off testing for these commonly-occurring substances than basically not testing at all. Alcohol breath-testing, especially in its early days, picked up a range of false positives and other anomalies around perfumes and things, but there was never any question as to the necessity of it.

“The good news is that we might not have to wait for the Government to decide which way it’s going to go on saliva testing, because National MP Alastair Scott has had his member’s bill on the issue pulled from the ballot.

“Scott’s Bill, the Land Transport (Random Oral Fluid Testing) Amendment Bill, would do exactly what RTF, the AA and other road user groups are advocating – allow police to obtain a saliva sample on the side of the road.

The legislation is limited in its scope and only seeks to test for THC (cannabis), MDMA (ecstasy) and methamphetamine (P).

“It’s difficult to predict when the Bill will come up, but it will surely get enough votes, with NZ First or Labour’s support, to at least pass first reading and from there on in it can be worked on and modified to be made more robust and perhaps include a broader range of substances.

“Driving under the influence of drugs is without doubt a serious safety issue and must be treated with the same gravity as drunk driving.

The statistics released by AA illustrate that we can no longer afford to kick this particular can down the road.

“Roadside saliva testing may not be perfect, but wherever it has been implemented around the world it has at least acted as a strong deterrent.

As long as we provide Police with the ability to continually update their testing technology we can design a system that will incorporate international best practice,” according to Shirley.

He adds that “if the Government is serious about doing something about road safety, as their Vision Zero rhetoric would suggest, then doing nothing is not an option. RTF hopes that all parties can therefore get behind Alastair Scott’s Bill.” T&D

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THE DRIVING FORCE OF NEW ZEALAND TRUCKING

Programme coming together for Conference

W

ITH ONLY TWO MONTHS TO GO UNTIL THE 2018 Road Transport Forum Conference, on September 26 and 27, the programme is coming together for what should be an excellent gathering of our industry, says Forum chief executive Ken Shirley.

“Dunedin is this year’s venue and, as it’s the first time that we’ve been back there since 2005, we’re making a big effort to give the whole event a real southern theme,” says Shirley.

The Conference itself is in the impressive Forsyth Barr Stadium, while the NZ Road Transport Industry Awards Dinner takes place in the beautiful Dunedin Town Hall.

“We decided to keep the Conference programme to two days again this year and have maintained similar pricing to what we had in 2017,” says Shirley.

“As conferences go, it’s one of the cheapest around and we believe with the quality of the programme it is great value for money.”

“The short, sharp nature of the event gives operators and their staff the opportunity to come along without it being too disruptive to their business. We know what a busy industry this is and how every day matters.

“With the event beginning at lunchtime on the 26th it will allow people to fly into Dunedin that morning and get straight into the Conference.

46 | Truck & Driver

“We have recently confirmed some exciting speakers, including wellknown economic commentator Cameron Bagrie, HW Richardson chairman Rex Williams and founder of Helicopters Otago Graeme Gale.

Transport Minister Phil Twyford is making time in his busy schedule to join us also.

“The traditional sector meetings and Industry Forum are in the programme again as they allow delegates to discuss some of the issues currently concerning them, which is an important feature of RTF conferences.

“Furthermore, there will be panel discussions on fatigue and impairment, and the importance of training and qualifications, as well as Business NZ’s industrial relations expert Paul Mackay, and his briefing on the impact of the Government’s employment law changes.

“We have also attempted to find a good balance across the two days by including light-hearted events, such as the Conference Breakfast with Otago sports icon Paul Allison and the Farewell BBQ. The NZ Road Transport Industry Awards Dinner will also feature some fantastic local entertainment in amongst the important business of presenting the various awards.

“May I also remind readers that the 2018 NZ Truck Driving Championship, sponsored by TR Group, is already under way and there

THE DRIVING FORCE OF NEW ZEALAND TRUCKING

Road Transport Forum New Zealand was set up as a national body in 1997 to responsibly promote and advance the interests of the road transport industry and its member associations. Members of the Road Transport Forum’s member associations – NRC, NZ Trucking and RTANZ – are automatically affiliated to the Forum.

Road Transport Forum NZ PO Box 1778, Wellington 04 472 3877 forum@rtf.nz www.rtfnz.co.nz Ken Shirley, Chief Executive 04 472 3877 021 570 877 ken@rtf.nz National Road Carriers (NRC) Providing services that assist NZ transport businesses PO Box 12-100, Penrose, Auckland 0800 686 777 09 622 2529 (Fax) enquiries@natroad.co.nz www.natroad.co.nz David Aitken, Chief Executive 09 636 2951 021 771 911 david.aitken@natroad.co.nz Paula Rogers, Executive Officer 09 636 2957 021 771 951 paula.rogers@natroad.co.nz Grant Turner, Executive Officer 09 636 2953 021 771 956 grant.turner@natroad.co.nz

The short, sharp nature of this Conference is designed to allow operators and staff to attend, with minimal disruption to running their businesses are two more heats to go – Auckland on August 18 and Whangarei on September 1.

“The championship final kicks off the day before the Conference, on September 25, and will roll over into the Conference’s first day. It’s being held on the East Slab, where the temporary Otago Daily Times Stand sits, and will provide a tight and technical course,” says Shirley.

A range of Conference sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities are still available, and interested organisations should contact the Forum directly for more information on these or visit the Conference website for information on the various sponsorship opportunities.

The website, including the online registration facility, updated programme, accommodation options, sponsorship packages, transport and a partners’ programme, is at www.rtfconference.co.nz. T&D

NZ Trucking Association (NZTA) Working for owner operators and the industry PO Box 16905, Hornby, Christchurch 8441 0800 338 338 03 349 0135 (Fax) info@nztruckingassn.co.nz www.nztruckingassn.co.nz David Boyce, Chief Executive 03 344 6257 021 754 137 dave.boyce@nztruckingassn.co.nz Carol McGeady, Executive Officer 03 349 8070 021 252 7252 carol.mcgeady@nztruckingassn.co.nz Women in Road Transport (WiRT) Promoting the sector as a preferred career option for women and supporting women in the industry www.rtfnz.co.nz/womeninroadtransport wirtnz@gmail.com

Road Transport Association of NZ (RTANZ) Formed in 2010 from the previous regional structure of the NZRTA National Office, PO Box 7392, Christchurch 8240 0800 367 782 03 366 9853 (Fax) admin@rtanz.co.nz www.rtanz.co.nz Dennis Robertson, Chief Executive 03 366 9854 021 221 3955 drobertson@rtanz.co.nz Area Executives Auckland/North Waikato/Thames Valley Keith McGuire 0800 367 782 (Option 2) 027 445 5785 kmcguire@rtanz.co.nz Southern Waikato/Bay of Plenty/Taupo/ Poverty Bay Dave Cox 0800 367 782 (Option 2) 027 443 6022 dcox@rtanz.co.nz King Country/Taranaki/Wanganui/ Manawatu/Horowhenua to Levin Tom Cloke 0800 367 782 (Option 4) 027 446 4892 tcloke@rtanz.co.nz Hawke’s Bay/Wairarapa/Otaki to Wellington Sandy Walker 0800 367 782 (Option 5) 027 485 6038 swalker@rtanz.co.nz Northern West Coast/Nelson/ Marlborough/North Canterbury John Bond 0800 367 782 (Option 6) 027 444 8136 jbond@rtanz.co.nz Southern West Coast/Christchurch/MidCanterbury/South Canterbury Simon Carson 0800 367 782 (Option 7) 027 556 6099 scarson@rtanz.co.nz Otago/Southland Alan Cooper 0800 367 782 (Option 8) 027 315 5895 acooper@rtanz.co.nz

Truck & Driver | 47

f o s d a o l k c u Tr klock Photos Gerald Shac ro un M ne ay W & Story Cory Martin

Arvinan Ram, standing proud in her golden sari, with bright pink lipstick and nail polish, redefines what it is to be a Kiwi transport operator in the New Millennium

48 | Truck & Driver

y t i s r dive FLEET FOCUS

Truck & Driver | 49

Arvi knew nothing about trucks when she started her company four years ago. And no....trucking doesn’t run in the family: Her Dad WAS a driver in Fiji – but behind the wheel of a taxi...not a truck

T

HE INCREDIBLE THING ABOUT THE TRUCKING industry is the diversity of the people who work in it, prosper in it….love it.

They range from the old-school rough and ready type in a bush shirt or singlet (yes, they do survive still), to the third generations who’ve grown up in the family business, the blokes who just love trucks and somehow still make a buck…and the corporate execs in their immaculate Working Style suits.

And now, here comes Arvinan (Arvi) Ram – spectacularly stretching the definition of a Kiwi transport operator in the 21 st Century.

A 38-year-old wife and mother, a five-truck fleet owner standing proud wearing a golden sari, bright pink nail polish and matching lipstick.

A Fijian Indian who came to New Zealand 17 years ago to wed in an arranged marriage...

Who, in just four years, has broken into the highly competitive world of supplying bulk tippers to contractors on construction, residential and commercial development and civil work around Auckland…

With absolutely and utterly no previous knowledge or experience of trucking!

Remarkable as all of this is, Arvi Ram reckons that for someone like her – “I love a challenge,” she says, as if that explains everything – it’s actually been “easy.”

It raises big questions: Like, how? Why? And how about ‘what the….!’

How is a woman from a conservative, immigrant background forging out a successful career in an industry

she had no prior knowledge or experience with? And why would she want to enter the still male-dominated world of trucking as an outsider anyway?

The story begins in Fiji – in Tavua, on the western side of Viti Levu – where Arvi grew up, part of that country’s large Indian community. That comes with certain cultural and traditional expectations – namely that, as a young woman, she’d be married by arrangement and have children!

And in 2001, the 21-year-old computer studies student duly came to New Zealand to marry Vinod Prakash – also a Fijian Indian, but who’d lived here then for 14 years.

They wed in 2001 and a year later Arvi gave birth to their son Francis Omesh Prakash.

But being a housewife forever wasn’t for Arvi: “I wasn’t doing anything! I was staying at home….I was getting bored. So, in 2002, I went to school – I went to MIT (Manukau Institute of Technology) and did a course in healthcare assistance.”

She duly qualified and went to work as a healthcare assistance technician at Auckland City Hospital until 2007 – all the while wishing she was running some kind of business of her own.

An escape from this nine-to-five came when a cousin decided to sell his courier business and move to Australia.

It was an opportunity: She was interested in starting her own business – and running courier vans seemed like an interesting endeavour.

“So I got into that. My cousin sold me the business and helped me get set up. I had one run and one van at first – Truck & Driver | 51

I was driving it from 2007 until 2010.”

Then she and her husband decided to expand the business – investing in a second van and hiring someone to drive it. From there the business boomed: Within two years they had four runs and seven vans.

As successful as all of this sounds, in early 2014 – even with the courier business thriving – Arvi started dreaming bigger dreams. Bigger vehicles, that is. Like…trucks.

She reckons that she noticed a lot of people getting into trucking, including the cousin who she’d bought her courier business from. By then he had a truck business in Australia.

Trucking, she reckons, “was hot back then. Everyone was doing trucking. I said to myself ‘I could do that!’

“This is my thinking – that because I was in the transport business I should maybe do something bigger and better.”

She spoke to friends and relatives who were already involved in trucking – even quizzed Graham Redington, owner of the Northchill transport operation…and a regular stop on one of her courier runs.

He provided a contact with a Freight Lines contractor, who she duly got in touch with and subsequently seriously considered getting into a contract to run a linehaul unit.

She took a relative’s advice that, for someone starting out in the industry, it might be pretty demanding....and decided to stay away from linehaul.

52 | Truck & Driver

The final nudge for her to move from running courier vans to running trucks was NZ Post’s introduction of its Paxter battery-powered micro-vans (or carts) for postie deliveries. Arvi felt that they were effectively sounding the death-knell for NZ Post’s couriers.

And sure enough, she says: “They started to give us notice in 2014 that it would be our last courier runs – they were getting rid of those runs.

“It was stressful: I got mentally sick because they basically told me that in three months’ time they were taking away my livelihood.”

Her response was to become a transport operator. Ask her if there’s been any history of trucking in her family and she bursts into laughter: No, it definitely wasn’t in the blood. Her late father, Paras Ram, wasn’t a truck driver or transport operator – he was a taxi driver in Tavua.

So there’d been no childhood spent riding shotgun in trucks.

In fact, she’d barely set foot in a truck stop, let alone a transport yard. Essentially, she knew NOTHING about trucks or the transport industry.

On the other hand, what she was well-equipped with was drive and

Main picture & above right: The A.V.O. trucks do a lot of work on residential subdivisions – delivering metal and sand and operating under diggers and carting away topsoil

determination. And husband Vinod, she says, is a freethinking, Kiwi-ised man…who was happy to support her in pursuing her dreams.

“He is a silent partner – he didn’t want to be involved.

He just said it’s your business – you do it.’ So I do everything.”

Also, she says, she had enough friends and relatives in the industry that “I knew if I ever got stuck, they would help me.”

So, in 2014, she decided to have a go – and A.V.O. bought its first truck – a 20-year-old Hino tipper, that cost just $30,000.

“I don’t usually like buying old, cheap vehicles. With the couriers I always bought brand-new vehicles,” she says.

“But I was testing the waters. I said ‘why not give

it a try – give it a go. It’ll work.’ You have to have the faith. When it comes down to it I am very positive – and I was willing to jump in and learn.

“I didn’t even tell anyone I was doing it – didn’t want the Indian community to know. They might gossip and get jealous,” she reckons, grinning.

The company’s first trucking job was with residential builder and property developer Jason Tian’s New Au Enterprises in Manurewa, working under a digger and carting topsoil away and bringing in metal, sand and so on.

“I like working for these guys – they’re very helpful and they pay you very well and very quickly. I still do work for them now,” says Arvi.

After running the old Hino for a while to test the waters she realised there was good potential there – if she had

Truck & Driver | 53

Right: Arvi runs the business from the family home in Otahuhu

Below, left & right: After starting out with a 20-year-old truck, Arvi’s policy is to only buy brand-new... and only Hinos

a reliable truck: “The only bad thing about that truck was every day or second day – in the garage. Secondhand vehicles always give you trouble.

“So when I saw it started making money….I decided to get a brand-new one and let’s see how it goes.” Less than a year after she’d bought it, the old Hino was sold in September 2015 – for the same price that she’d paid for it.

After also checking out Fuso trucks, she settled on a new Hino 500 6x4 – a Fieldays special that came ready to work, with a Cambridge Welding steel tipper body.

“I never bought a used truck again. All of my fleet are new Hino 500s,” she says. All of them too have Cambridge Welding tippers – their building organised on her behalf by Hino.

At the same time as the new truck arrived she stopped running her courier vans fulltime – giving up four runs and retaining just two: The courier business, she says, “pays my rent and puts food on the table.”

Driven to find the work necessary for the new truck to pay for itself, she launched into a major push to win work with some of the big construction companies around Auckland.

“I just got in touch through family and friends and by word of mouth. They said ‘go and see this person at Fulton Hogan…if you have good trucks and good drivers they will 54 | Truck & Driver

work with you.’ ” The new Hino ended up doing very well – working for Fulton Hogan on roading jobs by night, then run by a second driver by day for New Au and other customers. She also began working with Downers as a subcontractor.

Now, just four years after starting out in trucking, A.V.O. has a fleet of five Hino 500s – the latest one just added: “I wanted a new truck for my birthday,” she laughs.

“I just had to check on the calendar – we’re superstitious about dates.” It’s the reason why all of her other trucks were bought in September, she reckons.

Her trucks, she says, stay busy servicing New Au and major contractors including Fulton Hogan and Downers.

They work under diggers, cart excavation spoil and the millings from road resealing work…and deliver metal, sand and bark – anywhere around the region. Much of the work is on major construction sites.

Before the latest truck was added, Arvi had six drivers on her payroll, allowing her to regularly doubleshift some of the trucks. It means that an A.V.O. truck can be on a work site 24 hours a day, six days a week, when required.

Finding and retaining drivers, she says, hasn’t been a problem: “For some reason, they come to me,” she says.

“They hear my drivers are getting paid well and treated well and so drivers are just queuing up, offering their

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“I’ve got new trucks – I have no issues! It’s as simple as that” services.”

All of her current drivers are Fijian Indians – some hired in Fiji and brought to NZ on temporary work permits, others already living here.

She looks after them, she says: “I don’t make them work at cheap rates, they drive new trucks and I don’t separate their rates – they all they work for the same wage….so they don’t talk to each other and complain.”

Having new trucks, she says, helps give her a competitive edge over some other companies running tippers in the same market: “I’ve got new trucks – I have no issues! It’s as simple as that.

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“In this industry, all the companies do the same thing for the same price – but we have new trucks. We get called

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She reckons that has won A.V.O. a good reputation with its client companies.

The entire operation is run by Arvi herself, apart from the invoicing. As she explains: “I get a headache doing that! Working the trucks with these big companies, you have to invoice them morning and afternoon, day and night, for four trucks, six days a week!”

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Top right: While the trucks do a lot of roading work by night, by day they’re kept busy carting all kinds of bulk products around the Auckland region Top left: The A.V.O. boss currently has her Class 4 learners licence – wanted to learn to drive so she’d better understand the business

“Do you know how many invoices that is per week?” she laughs and adds: “I can’t do it – I can’t do it!”

Instead a good friend manages all of the necessary invoicing.

Says Arvi: “Everything else I do myself. Pay wages, go to the accountant, make all the business decisions.”

From immigrant housewife, to established courier fleet operator…and now fledgling trucking company owner, Arvi Ram’s last 17 years have been remarkable.

Even if she laughs and reckons “it’s been easy,” she admits that there have been some difficulties and problems.

She says that being accepted as a woman in the trucking and construction industries has been easy. Culturally there have been issues. Being an Indian woman, dealing with the many Indian men involved in the trucking and contracting industries hasn’t been universally welcomed.

“The men all took me very seriously. It was easy. I even go to all of the (contractors) meetings….but I take my husband with me.

“I mostly deal with men, and people can take it the wrong way,” says Arvi, who tries not to worry about it: “I don’t care. I don’t let it bother me, because I am a businesswoman. If you gossip and talk – it’s your problem.

I have made something of myself and some people get jealous of that.”

She says that she’s also had to deal with occasional issues with her employees’ “other-halves.”

“I have had calls at night from the wives of my drivers saying ‘why are you calling my husband!’ I say: ‘What do you mean – do you want your husband to work for the company or not?’ ” She thinks she’s now figured a way around this problem: “When I take interviews now, I say ‘can you please bring your wife along with you?’ I do it so they know who they’re talking to and what is going on – that it’s all strictly business.”

All of the employees at A.V.O. come from Fiji and so need extra coaching to ensure they’re quickly up to speed with the level of health and safety required on large construction sites.

The construction companies all run tight H&S checks on contractors arriving at their work sites: “They’ll check your safety gear – your gloves, eye protection, hard hats. They’ll check your boots. If they aren’t lace-up they’ll chase you home.”

Sometimes, she says, her new drivers are “naughty.

Sometimes I have had to get up in the middle of the night and take shoes to the sites for my drivers.”

Arvi says that her chosen career wouldn’t be for every woman: “You have to be really strong to do this job. I don’t think it would suit many Indian women.

“And you have to understand everything about it: I got my Class 4 learners to understand what my drivers are doing and about trucks in general – and I drove a courier van for a long time before that,” she says.

In the future, Arvi would like to focus exclusively on trucking – but meantime values the two courier runs she and Vinod retained “because that income is guaranteed income – whether it rains or shines. I know that that income will be in my bank account.

“The income from trucking slows down when it rains. I have to keep the second income to ensure food is on my table and the mortgage is paid.”

She says that her son Francis, now 16, is at the forefront of her push into business: “That’s my future, that’s my son’s future. He is taking a lot of interest in the business, which I am very happy about.

“But at the moment he is very expensive! He has heaps of shoes and his current pair cost me $300,” she laughs.

Quickly though A.V.O. has grown, it’s clear that Arvi has much bigger plans – for more trucks, more drivers, more work….and a new Ford Ranger Raptor for herself. T&D Truck & Driver | 59

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Harrison, from Halls T HE PRESTIGIOUS AUCKLAND Grammar School gets a vote of thanks from young truckie Harrison Wells for recognising the road transport industry as a worthwhile career choice.

The 19-year-old, now driving for Halls Transport and loving it, says he was encouraged to pursue a job in road transport by Grammar careers teacher Graeme Edwards.

“It got to the stage where school wasn’t for me,” says Wells: “The third and fourth form was okay, but I hated the fifth and sixth form.”

He was regularly late for school – on purpose – and wasn’t a fan of the Cambridge senior school exams that Auckland Grammar steers its pupils towards.

On the other hand, he was offered other opportunities by the school that led to him gaining a forklift licence and barista skills.

“There was also information about the trucking and logistics industry, which looked interesting. I kept telling my parents I wanted to leave school, but they said I had to get a job.”

With encouragement from Edwards, Wells put together a CV and approached David Aitken, CEO of the National Road Carriers Association.

Aitken supplied contacts for a number of big Auckland transport companies, the CV was sent, Harrison got an interview with Halls executive director Grant Madill… and the Monday after he finished his sixth form (Year 12) exams, he started work.

“I’ve loved it from day one,” reckons Harrison, who started out picking and packing in the warehouse and loading trucks.

After three months, he began making van deliveries around Auckland, having progressed through his standard driver’s licence as quickly as possible: “I sat my learner’s after school on my 16th birthday and got my restricted as soon as I could.”

He progressed to his full licence in the minimum time possible.

Harrison Wells loves his job In June last year he gained his Class 2 licence and was soon driving nine-tonners.

Now, just 18 months after he started work, he has his Class 4 licence and is driving a 400 horsepower 8x4 Isuzu, “which can test your skills,” he says.

A normal working day sees him start work around 6am, then delivering chilled and frozen goods to supermarkets, restaurants and cafes over the next 10 to 12 hours around the greater Auckland area.

“It’s pretty intensive and keeps you on your toes,” he reckons. The most drops he’s done in a single day is 67!

Harrison is hoping to get his Class 5 licence by year’s end, “If I keep doing what I’ve done so far and not make any mistakes.”

All his driver training has been done

by Halls’ onsite trainers: “I get to check in with them and get tips and advice whenever I need to.” The training has also included block courses of unit standards commensurate with the licence level.

“It’s a great industry to be in,” he says: “I like the practical aspect of it. Much better than academic stuff.”

It fits perfectly with the love of vehicles he’s had “since I was a little kid: Cars trucks – anything I could jump into the seat and blow the horn.”

He enjoys the variety the job offers, meeting new people and the opportunity to get out on the road and drive modern machinery.

And he thanks the people who got him his dream job: “I wouldn’t be here without Graeme Edwards. David Aitken and Grant Madill have both been awesome too.” T&D

Truck & Driver | 61

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LEGENDS

Mike Lyon put in an amazing 52 years working for the same trucking operation...albeit for two different owners

Multi-talented Mike: Driver, depot boss… designer Story Cory Martin

W

HEN TRUCKING LEGEND MIKE LYON TALKS about the variety and versatility in the industry back “in the old days,” he doesn’t just mean the work – he’s talking about trucks and trailers that could be used for all sorts of jobs.

“Now you often have one truck that does one thing – even one company that does just one thing,” observes the 72-year-old, recently-retired Lyon.

Whereas, as he explains, working for Awatere Transport at Seddon – in rural Marlborough – back in the 1960s and ‘70s “I carted stock, I carted wool, I did some spreading….” And then there was the gravel – and the fertiliser. And whatever else the local farmers needed delivered.

And when Mike didn’t think the company gear was versatile enough, he turned self-taught engineer…and

came up with something that would better meet the need!

When Mike retired in March, he’d worked a remarkable 52 years for the same operation – albeit under a different name and owner, the Awatere Transport name having disappeared early on, when it was bought out by Blenheim-based Gill Construction.

Trucks are a passion that for Mike began at an early age: “My family relocated from Nelson to Lake Rotoiti when I was a child… you used to see what they called the coal run, all the Blenheim trucks carting coal used to go past the township…..”

Mike’s father ran a service coach between Nelson and Rotoiti when Mike was young – then went building.

He had a truck and was happy to fuel his son’s interest – teaching him to drive even before he was a teen: “The old man had an A3 Bedford and I learned to drive in that.

Truck & Driver | 63

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Above: Mike had no plans and had never even seen a three-deck stock crate when he built the crate for the three-axle trailer behind this Leyland Crusader in his downtime in 1975. He built the truck crate two winters later. He drove the Crusader for eight years. On Mike’s first run to Auckland carting pigs, the Leyland – with a 285hp Detroit V8 – weighed-in at 50 tons all-up!

Left: Awatere Transport carried whatever the locals needed carrying – like this good load of bagged chaff, back in the mid-1960s

There wasn’t much traffic in those days. That’s where I REALLY got keen.”

As there wasn’t a college anywhere near Lake Rotoiti, Mike had to head off to Wellington for his schooling.

Unfortunately, there were no trucks there for him to drive – and when he returned home, he went to work labouring on farms. It was a job he did for four years – discovering that he thoroughly enjoyed stock work.

He was even happier though when one of the cockeys asked him to transport some gravel. He asked Roger Brown, the owner of Awatere Transport in Seddon, if he could borrow a truck to do the job.

Brown obliged – but was less than impressed when, soon after, Mike asked if he could borrow the Bedford A5 again….so he could do his HT licence test in it!

“He said ‘I thought you had your licence!’ But he let me borrow it anyway,” Mike chuckles.

The licence “was was pretty easy to get – just had to do a quick drive around town…. The same for getting my trailer licence: I used a new Ford D800 artic then though – and I think the cop was more interested in the truck than my driving.”

Eventually, the 11 pounds a week he earned doing farm work didn’t really seem to stack up – ‘specially when he quizzed Roger Brown on what kind of money he paid his truck drivers.

His response made Mike’s jaw drop!: “Twenty-five to 30 pounds per week,” said Brown.

“I said ‘right that’s me’,” laughs Lyon. He started driving for Awatere soon after, at the age of 20 – on Labour Weekend, 1966.

Mike’s first truck at Awatere was a 100-horsepower petrol-engined TK Bedford, used to cart hay, stock and gravel.

That was replaced by another TK, this one with a 120hp diesel and a 20ft trailer. He also used it as a fert spreader.

“I did a lot of more local stuff at first – carting wool to the railway.… It was a bugger of a job. And there were no combination (stock) crates in those days, so you’d spend half the time crawling around on your hands and knees when you were loading or unloading,” he says.

One memory that really sticks in Mike’s mind is carting gravel 105 kilometres into Molesworth Station from Seddon – “climbing up over the (1200m high) Upcot Saddle in the middle of summer in a fully loaded A5 Bedford. It probably took you half an hour to get over.

Those were really hot days.”

After a year in the TK, Lyon was put onto a 180hp Ford D1000 Diesel with a 24ft deck, which he drove for the next five years. During this time, the trucking business was booming in the area – carting stock, wool, aggregate, farm supplies.

Truck & Driver | 65

Mike got to expand his trucking horizons – with jobs that took him and the D1000 down to Christchurch…even to Tekapo: “The roads were a lot different in those days.

They were narrow, the bridges were dodgy. The Hundalees especially were a lot different than what they are now.”

In the late 1960s, Awatere got onboard the so-called “rubber rail” run, created by a shortage of railway wagon space on the Cook Strait ferries.

Freight would be trans-shipped from rail wagons to trucks in Blenheim and the trucks would take the ferry to Wellington, get unloaded into the wharf sheds (or maybe at Petone), reload with freight for Blenheim, then wait for the evening ferry home.

“They were pretty long days. You’d start early in the morning and not get back until 8pm.”

In the early 1970s, when Awatere Transport was bought out by Blenheim-based Gill Construction, Mike simply carried on, driving for the new owners…for what has turned out to be over 45 years!

Soon Gills began carting more widely around the South Island – and beyond Wellington in the North. Mike wasn’t on a set run so could be carting to Wanganui, Picton, Nelson, Islington…even as far as Balclutha.

As the longer runs became more regular the Ford D1000 was retired and Mike was given a Leyland Buffalo truck and trailer unit to drive.

It was a real workhorse, just like Mike. In 1975, after Cyclone Alison hit the Kaikoura Coast and damaged the Main Trunk railway line, together they really earned their

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keep: “For about nine days we had to cart the goods… through the Lewis Pass inland route.

“We had to just keep going. Get a couple of hours sleep somewhere, then keep going…. The Shenandoahs hadn’t been done up then so the road…was it rough! And the weather was wild. There were loads of truckies out there – half of them had no idea where they were going.”

From early on in his time at Awatere Mike had been put to work in the offseason on building stock crates – for Awatere and other operators: “Once Roger Brown found out I could weld, that was it.”

After he’d had the Buffalo for about 18 months, he decided to get creative with a 28ft trailer that had old two-deck crates that needed replacing. He reckoned he could build a three-decker instead.

The ingenious Lyon designed and built a three-decker crate using materials that were for “repairs.”

When the boss saw the unit with its new Mikedesigned-and-built three-deck crate, as Mike recalls, “he took one look at it and said ‘shit….we can’t put that on there!’ ” Mike thought he was in trouble….but no: “The boss went out and bought me a Leyland Crusader – a bigger truck! I ended up driving that for the next eight years.”

Mike’s crate creativity didn’t stop there: “I built a few 24-foot crates over the winter and put one on the Crusader. It worked really well and we had it on there for a long time.”

It became a routine part of his job: Driving during the

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Top left: Another of Mike’s crate creations – with doors on the sides allowing other freight to be carried when there was no stock Top right: Mike’s Ford D1000 worked as far afield as Tekapo

Above: A young Mike with his Dad’s International service car, back in the late 1940s, or early ‘50s

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Truck & Driver | 67

Top left: Mike gets back in the chair at Gills’ Seddon depot, just for old times’ sake

Top right: Mike reckons he loved his trucking life, can’t remember any bad bits to it

Bottom left: The Awatere Transport yard around the time Mike started there, in 1966. Bedfords dominated the 13-truck lineup, but there’s the Merc 1418 at front right, a Ford and an Austin there too Bottom right: Four Awatere stock units wait for loads at the Tekapo sale in the mid-1960s

busy season, designing and building stock crates in the quiet times. He reckons he built six three-deckers for Gills over the years.

In 1977/‘78 Gills was focusing on carting stock, which saw Mike travelling far and wide, doing some pretty gruelling hours on tough terrain: “I was up and down the coast constantly.

“And then I started doing my first long-haul interisland trips: We’d regularly take pigs at least as far as Auckland….or from Christchurch to Palmerston North.”

The trip wasn’t as easy and straightforward as it is today, as Mike explains: “We used to load the pigs in Blenheim and then catch the boat at 4pm. We’d arrive in Wellington around 7.30pm, then chug along to Taupo.”

The route, of course, included the tough haul through the Mangawekas, which was slow going.

“I’d find somewhere to put my head down for a couple of hours, then carry on through to Auckland.” There he’d unload – “then head straight back to Taihape, arriving at five or six o’clock (at night).”

After a sleep, “first thing in the morning I’d shoot away and catch the boat home around midday. It was a long hard trip back then.”

He didn’t have the luxury of a sleeper cab – but he would “pop a little mattress between the seats” to sleep on. Mike loved the life nevertheless.

In the early ‘80s, his main job became carting sheep, 68 | Truck & Driver

calves and pigs to the North Island...and backloading dairy cows, mostly to South Canterbury. The work took him up and down the South Island and widely around the North Island – to Taranaki, Wairarapa, Taupo, Rotorua and Northland.

The inter-island work had changed too from his early experiences – particularly the Cook Strait ferry crossings: “In those days the ferries were pretty fussy. They didn’t like the stock trucks on them some days. I had to leave loads in Levin and places like that.

“One time I was there for a week before they’d bring us home – ‘rough seas’ and every excuse under the sun not to bring all the trucks back. I had to fly home in a little Cessna and come back later to get the truck.”

Mike drove his Leyland Crusader right up until 1984, when the old workhorse was finally retired. The truck was replaced with a 320hp V8 Mitsubishi which he drove right up until he retired from fulltime driving, eight years later.

During the mid-1980s, Mike says, the company’s livestock work dipped a bit, particularly in the winter time.

To better cope with this he designed another set of crates in his downtime – these ones with folding floors and internal walls, so a tractor could drive right inside them to load them with bales of wool or whatever when they didn’t have stock to carry.

The truck and trailer unit could fit 105-110 bales: “It was hard work getting them on, but it was good because we

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Top right: This Mitsi was Mike’s last truck before he quit driving fulltime and moved into the office

Lower right: In his time managing the depot, Mike salvaged as many of the old Awatere Transport and Gills photos as he could and framed the best of them for the depot’s walls Above: Mike’s long involvement in trucking was recognised by the RTF and RTA on his retirement

could cart so much at a time.”

In 1994, after 28 years behind the wheel, he moved from the cab and into Gills’ Seddon office after the death of the depot manager. He was reluctant at first, but accepted that he needed to do it for the good of the business.

For a number of years, his expectation that his working life would become a lot less hectic was well short of the reality: “I didn’t stop driving,” he explains.

Rather, the mild-mannered Lyon continues, “I was organising stuff in the office AND drove the trucks – both pretty much fulltime!

“Of course, I wasn’t doing the longhaul stuff anymore, but I was still carting local stock, grain and hay, as well as juggling office work. I was working seven days a week.”

Gradually things did begin to wind-down in terms of the driving – although he’d still jump in one of Gill’s Isuzus whenever he was needed…and that became more frequent in recent years as the driver shortage hit the small-town operation.

Says Mike: “It’s very hard on our side to find jokers to do stock. The money’s not that big and the hours are long. You have to get out in the wet and mud and it’s tough work.

“It’s also so hard to get your licence now – and you can’t get your kids in the truck with you. My kids lived in the truck and that’s how people got into it back in the day – it was all cockeys’ kids who were getting into driving after jumping in and having a go.”

The last year of his working life, before retiring in

March, was spent driving almost fulltime. Not that he was complaining: “I’ve always been keen on trucks and I still am.

“The trucks are a LOT different to when I was driving fulltime,” he laughs: “I remember driving in the Crusader, bouncing around everywhere on top of the bolted-down seat….

“It’s a far cry from the 460 Isuzu I’ve been driving with its automatic gearbox and comfy seat.”

Over the years Mike has racked up immeasurable hours and kilometres of hours on the road, driving the width and breadth of the country….and loving it.

“It’s the camaraderie and the friendships that you make along the way that keeps you going,” he says.

“You used to meet drivers from all over the country at truck stops, at the works, over the RT, on the farms. It freshens you up – you didn’t need to go away on holiday, that’s for sure.”

Not only that, but there was also the satisfaction of a job well done that kept him motivated over the years: “If you cart a load of cattle from one end of the country to the other, and they all walk off alive and well, you get that sense of pride in your work.”

He struggles to think of any bad times from his 52 years in trucking, except maybe “loading stock in the wet and in the mud. That wasn’t pleasant.”

So there it is – over half a century in trucking and this hard-working, mild-mannered man is hard-pressed to find a single bad memory. That’s what you could call a trucking life well-lived. T&D Truck & Driver | 71

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FEATURE

Under Aussie onboard mass rules, South East Queensland Hauliers has been able to increase its combinations from 68 tonnes to 79t

Telematics: Mandatory maybe?

T

HE NEW ZEALAND ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY’S widespread adoption and use of telematics puts it in a strong position to “lead and advise” on regulations that could make the technology mandatory.

This is the view of Teletrac Navman’s vice president, transport solutions, Andrew Rossington – who suggests that, with Australia moving towards mandatory telematics in road transport, Kiwi transport businesses need to consider “how telematics-based policies can benefit your drivers and your business.”

They also need to “consider both the implications and the benefits of making the technology mandatory.

“Telematics data provides a point of certainty, making it incredibly useful for planning road infrastructure, understanding traffic patterns, addressing road safety and streamlining regulations.

The gains in access, information and productivity far outweigh any costs,” he adds.

Teletrac Navman’s 2018 Telematics Benchmark Report indicates that 89% of NZ transport businesses either use telematics or will implement it in the next 12 months.

The installed base of fleet management systems in NZ and Australia is expected to reach 1.4 million units by 2021, according to a report from Swedish analyst Berg Insight.

Currently the National Transport Commission (NTC), an

independent body that advises on transport policy in Australia, is reviewing the use of telematics for regulatory purposes across the transport sector.

This includes a focus on telematics-based regulations for heavy vehicles such as road access compliance programmes and electronic work diaries.

In response, Australia’s largest industry bodies are calling on the NTC to consider the mandatory use of telematics in heavy vehicles – for safety, road access and better transport planning.

Rossington says that Australia provides a good example of telematics-based regulations that benefit operators through further road access and a lifting of restrictions in exchange for compliance.

The Intelligent Access Programme (IAP) provides the opportunity for heavy vehicles with approved remote monitoring technology to operate at higher weight limits and gain access to road networks in exchange for compliance.

Using the IAP to provide assurance of weight, onboard mass (OBM) systems allow operators in some Australian states to use increased payloads or vehicle combinations on roads or access road assets that would otherwise be off-limits.

Says Rossington: “The OBM system has boosted productivity for many of our Australian customers.”

He cites as an example South East Queensland Hauliers – with a Truck & Driver | 73

Above: Critically, the Intelligent Access Programme means that the Queensland company can carry two 27 tonne, 40ft containers in one combination, whereas before it could only cart one

reported 50% reduction in trips and a resulting 40% saving in fuel costs.

The company provides container transport and logistics – one key route being from the Port of Brisbane to Toowoomba. The largest vehicle permitted on the route was a B-double (essentially a twin-drive tractor unit and two semi-trailers connected with a B coupling), rated up to a 68-tonne GCM. What that didn’t allow was the efficiency of hauling two 27 tonne, 40-foot containers (or one 40ft and two 20fters…or four 20ft boxes) on one unit.

But, by using an in-vehicle tracking unit integrated with onboard scales, SEQ Hauliers was able to prove compliance with permit conditions for road access – and has subsequently been allowed to increase the size and weight of its combinations.

The scales on the units monitor the load in real-time, so that accurate and automated weights can be obtained. The loads can be checked at any point of the journey, by way of the creation of geo-fences that allow monitoring of the vehicles and their loads by back-office users.

Now SEQH’s A-double units (double roadtrains), comprising twin-drive tractor units towing two tri-axle semi-trailers, connected with a tri or tandem dolly, can carry two 40ft containers (or combinations of 20ft and 40ft boxes), up to a maximum 79 tonnes all-up.

Now the company has about 20 units running under the approved OBM system.

Australian Logistics Council managing director Michael Kilgariff says that discussion in Australia “about making more effective use of telematics has been ongoing for a number of years, and during that time the technology available to industry has become both more reliable and more accessible – as the price of telematics equipment falls.

“This means it is now easier than ever to collect reliable data that can shape the development of a more efficient and safer 74 | Truck & Driver

freight transport network – one that will benefit the transport industry immensely.”

The Australian industry, says Kilgariff, “has consistently told government bodies that mandatory use of telematics is essential in driving efficiency and safety improvements in the heavy vehicle sector.

“There is an expectation that electronic work diaries will be made compulsory in the next couple of years.

“From an industry perspective, this makes it imperative for policymakers to adhere to a common telematics framework, with agreed, consistent standards. When telematics providers demonstrate they can reach those technical standards, they can be certified,” he says.

“Bringing this in sooner rather than later will mean businesses don’t have to guess which system will be certified. Otherwise additional costs will end up being passed on to heavy vehicle operators who have to change systems in the future to comply with regulations,” adds Kilgariff. T&D

TD28023

Right: Australian Logistics Council boss Michael Kilgariff

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Phil Newton quickly snapped into rescue mode when he spotted a woman in distress....and in danger

Calm, cool clifftop chat to defuse drama

F

ONTERRA MILKTANKER DRIVER PHIL Newton – nominated by his boss for the annual Truck Driver Hero Award for stopping to help an apparently-suicidal young woman sitting on a clifftop at the Arapuni Dam – says he’d “like to think anyone else would have done the same thing if they’d been there.”

Then again…he knows first-hand that’s not necessarily how it is: Even as he was sitting talking to the distressed woman on the clifftop, the driver of a passing truck looked at them and “mimed drinking or something like that! I thought ‘oh, just keep on driving.’

That was disappointing.”

Phil’s boss, Fonterra South Waikato depot

manager Stuart Reed says that Putaruru Police called him later that day to commend Phil’s actions.

They said that “due to his action he has potentially saved this woman’s life as she had put some serious thought into committing suicide.”

The May 3 incident saw Phil arrive at Arapuni, where the road crosses the Waikato River on the dam itself, and stopped to give way to a car…which he quickly realised was actually parked on the grass verge.

Thinking it was “strange,” he looked around as he drove over the dam “and spotted a young woman sitting at the top of a cliff.”

He immediately thought that “this is someone who looks like they’re wanting to commit suicide.

“Well, I thought, ‘she’s definitely not fishing! Oh heck, this isn’t good.’ ” He called Fonterra dispatch, asking them to call the Police, while he found a place to park his Volvo truck and trailer unit.

As he headed back “all I was hoping was that she’d still be there. And luckily she was.

“I called out to her a couple of times.

Eventually she turned around and I could see the tears – tell she wasn’t happy.

“She was definitely not in a good state of mind. She was a bit of a mess.”

Newton could see a newly-cut hole in the

Truck & Driver | 77

“She’d had a pretty tough last year...”

Phil says he just kept the young woman talking – “so she wasn’t thinking about throwing herself off the edge”

tall wire safety fence: “I said ‘look, do you mind if I come through…and she nodded.

“I said ‘look, I’m not gonna grab you or anything. I’m just going to sit over here (two or three metres away). I don’t want to get too near the edge myself.

“So I just sat there and chatted to her – asked her what was wrong and said she could talk to me…tell me what was going on, what was going through her head and that kind of thing.”

While talking, he calculated that “if she’d decided to just jump and go over the edge, I don’t think I’d have been able to grab her, but…yeah.

“But I would have seen her starting to move so…I don’t know.”

Phil didn’t care to look how high they were sitting above the river, but the dam is actually 64 metres high: “Yeah well, I’ve done a bit of rock climbing and stuff and I’m really not that scared of heights, but I don’t like going up to the edge of them.”

The 45-year-old remembered that “when a friend of mine’s Mum died years and years ago, his Dad saying that in times like that, just keep busy.

“So for me it was just keeping her talking – just keeping her chatting with me, so she wasn’t thinking about throwing herself off the edge.

“She’d had a pretty tough last year – a few odd things just pushed her over the edge

type of thing. She was around 23.”

Phil thinks it helped her – “just having someone to talk to. I was just letting her know, you know it’s not bad enough for that….I can’t remember exactly what I said.

“I was just hoping the Police would be on their way – and they turned up about 10 minutes, quarter of an hour later.

“When the Police arrived we were able to get her back up and away from the edge of the cliff, back through the fence and to safety. From there the Police took over…took her away to get her some help.”

He recalls them saying to her that, while she thought no-one cared, “there were three of us who cared enough to stop and try and get her away from the edge.”

Phil, who started his working life as a whitewater rafting guide and then was a roofer before he started driving trucks about 20 years ago, shrugs off the “hero” tag: “Aw yeah – one of those things. Yeah…all I can hope is that there are other people out there who would have done the same thing if they’d seen her.”

He reckons it was “just lucky I was in the right place at the right time” to help her.

And he points out that he and his wife have five kids between them – and yes, this experience made him think about them: About how vulnerable kids can be to such emotional lows.

“Absolutely. You look back on it in years

to come and you think ‘crikey, why should I feel that way.’ But at the time…it’s like everything’s against them.”

Phil, who says he’s “never experienced anything like it before,” confesses that “I was a little bit shaken up – just after it all happened.”

Fortunately, another Fonterra tanker driver had pulled up for his lunch break at the carpark near the dam – oblivious to the drama going on nearby until Phil, the young woman and the Police arrived.

Says Phil: “I went and chatted with him for five minutes or so, let the nerves settle… then jumped in the truck and carried on with my day.”

Stuart Reed, who nominated Phil for the Truck Driver Hero Award, says that in working with Phil for almost seven years, he’s learnt that Phil has “always been one to have a real genuine attitude for caring for others and an eye for detail.

“I think on this day Phil has put all his skills to great use….a true reflection of his integrity.

“Phil’s calm approach and the empathy he has for others has meant that she (the young woman) has stayed where she was until the Police had arrived.”

The annual winner of the Truck Driver Hero Award will be announced at the Road Transport Forum Annual Conference in Dunedin in September. T&D

78 | Truck & Driver

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LEGENDS

The spectacular paint job is the standout, obvious difference on the sleeper cab Legend 900. Well, the paint, the pinstriping, the scrollwork....AND that bumper. Plus lashings of shiny stuff, including its six stainless tanks

Legend Story Cory Martin, Wayne Munro Photos Gerald Shacklock, Hayden Woolston

F

OR MANY TRUCK LOVERS, KENWORTH’S NEW retro classic Legend 900 is IT. The Ultimate personal statement or fleet showpiece. As good as it gets.

For Pukekohe operators Graham and Michelle Redington, the modern take on the T900 heritage model from nigh on three decades ago, was just a starting point.

The ex-factory Legend 900 is, by Graham Redington’s judgment, “pretty good….a nice truck.”

But one still in need, in his opinion, of some serious embellishment.

Like spending an extra 60 grand on paint and old-school, hand-done signwriting, pinstriping and scrollwork, installing a top-end stereo and customising.

Truck & Driver | 81

Top & above: All of the signwriting was hand-painted by Cliff Mannington and Justin Klos...except for Graham Redington’s name

And like going to the extent (and expense) of having not one but two creative forces at work on the look of the truck – one in Aussie…and one here.

Kiwi signage and imaging specialist Cliff Mannington (of Truck Signs in Mount Maunganui), that is, and Justin Klos, co-owner of the renowned Klos Custom Trucks in Victoria.

“I wanted to do something really special with this truck,” explains Redington.

“I wanted it to be something like no one had seen before. To do this I knew I’d need the best people on the job…”

So, after he’d secured his Legend in Kenworth’s one-day-only opportunity to place an order in June last year, Redington commissioned both Mannington and Klos.

Says Redington of Mannington: “He’s really passionate about trucks and getting things right with his lines. His standards are totally unreal – he’s a true perfectionist about his work. Wherever he can, Cliff does everything by brush: That’s what we wanted.”

Redington likes the limited edition Legend concept enough that three years ago, when Kenworth did 75 Legend 950s, he flew over to Melbourne to join a mate who’d bought one – to pick it up from the factory and drive it to the Gold Coast.

Redington wasn’t happy with the way Kenworth went about that exercise: “Kenworth made 75 of them, 82 | Truck & Driver

but didn’t tell people. A lot of people were upset that they missed out.”

He passed on that heartfelt sentiment to Kenworth’s director of sales and marketing Brad May when he met him: “I’ve always wanted a Legend,” says the Pukekohe-based Kenworth operator.

And, he adds: “I didn’t want it to end up like when the 950 was released.”

Before the Legend 900 was announced at the 2017 Brisbane Truck Show, Redington got a call from South Island Southpac salesman Steve Herring, who he’s bought trucks through for over 20 years.

“He told me Kenworth were bringing out Legend 900s and asked if I wanted to buy one.” After some tough negotiations with his wife Michelle – “the boss,” says Graham – they decided to go for it….providing it carried the number 65 in the production run (Graham was born in 1965).

To make doubly sure that everything was sorted – Redington went over to the Brisbane show, to meet May and the New Zealand rep at Kenworth Australia, Matt Marshall….who assured him that the build number was locked in.

What left the Kenworth factory was a Legend 900 with a 36-inch modular sleeper and “the usual” Legend features, including a 600 horsepower/2050 lb ft Cummins X15 engine, a heavy-duty 18-speed Eaton RTLO22918B Roadranger gearbox, Meritor RT46-160GP

Above: Redington estimates he spent around $60,000 extra to turn the Legend into his ultimate truck

diffs with dual crosslocks and a Meritor MFS7.3 front axle – with 385/65 super singles on the front and 11R rears, on Alcoa Dura-Bright rims.

Extras fitted in the factory included an ISRI airsuspended passenger seat (to match the driver’s seat) and six stainless steel tanks – four fuel tanks (two of them strictly for looks) and two AdBlue tanks.

But that was just the beginning of the Redington Legend 900 exercise – with the truck going from the Bayswater factory straight to Klos Custom Trucks at Geelong.

It arrived in bare Toyota Grey – ready for Mannington and Klos to get started on planning the elaborate stripes, scrollwork, pinstriping and custom fittings.

Says Graham: “It was great watching them work, but I left them to it – I didn’t even get in the truck.

“I completely trust them both. Cliff and Justin are very like-minded – they bounce things off each other.

They had to agree to disagree on a couple of things, but on the whole it was seamless.”

Klos fitted the huge hand-made Barup alloy bumper – complete with the #65 and Legend 900 cut into it – and fitted a stainless drop visor, bullet lights on the roof, extra lights on the tanks, hoods on the headlights, extra stop lights (including five on the rear of the cab) and vertical exhaust stack extensions.

They also removed the Cummins badges from the

side of the bonnet (because they interfered with the planned stripes)….and relocated the Kenworth badges for the same reason. Klos also fitted its swan hood ornament on the bonnet.

The truck was then taken to TFI painters in Melbourne where the stripes were painted. But….it was only out of the paint shop a few minutes before Mannington was sent a photo of them – and vetoed the job because of the positioning of the painted stripes.

“He wasn’t happy with it,” says Redington, “so they ended up redoing the whole thing! It was the right move though: Some of the work would have clashed with other elements that were to be added later, such as the Kenworth badges.”

Back at Klos, all of the signwriting – including detailed pinstriping and scrollwork – was hand-painted

by Mannington and Klos….both using the same single brush.

According to Mannington, brushwork “captures the soul of a truck. It’s far more authentic.”

Klos did all the scrollwork and Mannington all the pinstriping and the actual signwriting.

Once they were happy with it, the truck was shipped to Auckland….where more work was done!

Kenworth NZ dealer Southpac Trucks fitted a fridge, Northchill driver Shane (Shag) Downey installed a topend Rockford Fosgate stereo system, a UHF, a Texas Truck & Driver | 83

Clockwise, from top left: Graham and Michelle Redington with their “baby”....the tractor unit and its refurbed tanker trailer only go to work occasionally....everyone who worked on the project signed the inside of the sleeper cab locker door....The Big Kahuna nickname suits its commanding presence....Northchill driver Shane Downey did much of the fitout of the interior extras – and is one of three who gets to drive the Legend

Ranger CB and a Cummins Road Relay computer.

Graham couldn’t speak more highly of his employee: “He’s done a great deal of work on this truck. He’s one of the only people I trust to do work on it and he’s just good at everything.”

Also installed below the grille was a tiny camera, delivering a 180-degree view directly in front of the truck to a screen in the cab – this to avoid any untoward scratches or scrapes.

Transvisual Spraypainters painted the chassis covers before Mannington added some finishing touches and the 2009 Tanker Engineering three-axle tanker semitrailer that goes behind the Legend was given a refurb – with new paint, stainless steel toolboxes and Alcoa Dura-Brights.

Mannington then added similar finishing scrollwork and pinstriping to the tanker.

In the end, over a dozen people worked on the truck – all of them signing the inside of the locker door on the sleeper cab.

Unsurprisingly, this special Legend is not used as a workhorse: “We cart CCA (copper chrome arsenic – used for timber tantalising) with the truck. It’s not a fulltime job – but I didn’t buy this truck to run it 84 | Truck & Driver

300,000kms a year,” says Redington.

“Most people are running them every day, but we’ve decided that it would just do the tanker work it.”

Only Redington, Downey and part-time Northchill driver Paul (Grassy) Crooks (who did work fulltime for the company for 12 years) get to drive the standout unit.

So far it’s only done 5000 kilometres and Redington says that’s how it’ll be all of its life.

In the small amount of time it’s been out and about, it has attracted huge attention, says Redington: “I hear heaps of comments on the radio. I stopped at Hunterville once around 6am and a guy came over and took heaps of photos and stuff. It looks really distinctive.”

Cliff Mannington reckons that it’s “the best-looking truck in New Zealand” – and a happy Redington agrees: “Yeah, it is a real nice truck. I’d say it is the nicest Legend here – by far. But we spent a lot of money to get it to where it is too, you know.”

It will, he agrees, always be his ultimate truck – nothing could cap it. And no, it’ll never be sold.

So has it been worth it? “Oh f*** yeah! It’s cool driving it down the road. It’s come up a million bucks.” T&D

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DRIVER CADETSHIP PART OF OUR BUSINESS PLAN

By Steve Divers Director – career pathways – road freight transport Sector Workforce Engagement Programme (SWEP)

The Talent Central industry showcase...before the crowds arrived

A

KEY COMPONENT IN CREATING A PATHWAY that will increase the number of professional truck drivers is the establishment of a recognised driver cadetship.

It is part of the SWEP group’s business plan and I’ll detail here what that’s about, what it sets out to achieve and how you can become involved.

This business plan has been endorsed by National Road Carriers, Road Transport Association New Zealand and the NZ Trucking Association – each of them supporting the plan’s subsequent actions.

The primary outcome for the plan is to create a pathway that will increase the number of professional drivers – specifically Class 5 combination drivers.

The traditional method of gaining a licence, independently of actually working in the industry or through a tertiary institute – by using an approved course provider and paying the fees – is still the main access point to the industry.

This has to change, as people now have access to many industries that will employ and pay for training.

This has been our industry’s downfall in recruitment.

Leaving it to someone else to do this will not solve

our ever-increasing driver shortage.

Our overall targets for the next 12 months are to increase the number of drivers by 250, over and above the current status quo, which sat last year at 1956 new Class 5 drivers.

We will also realise another 300 additional potential drivers on a pathway into the industry, and this is where the bridge between schools and employers becomes the reality.

A recognised cadetship is a key part of achieving that. There’s been discussion about “why don’t we have a national apprenticeship,” but this is a term that people get hung up on.

Don’t be anchored by the term apprentice – we need to have a training regime in place that benchmarks progress and has a systematic way of developing people and skills, and a way to deliver the training.

We do have this already, in the form of the Level 3 Commercial Road Transport qualification – but it’s under-utilised and only provided by a handful of tertiary institutes (although, I must make it clear, the logging sector is a standout performer in this area, Truck & Driver | 87

Right: Steve Divers addresses an RTANZ meeting Above: SWEP aims to pull together MITO, driver trainers, tertiary training organisations and participating transport operators in an integrated effort to increase driver numbers

by recognising and developing its own qualifications pathway).

The missing component has been the involvement of industry in training, as even those companies with driver trainers are invariably only involved with checking and developing the competence of existing drivers – with little or no capacity to bring in unskilled new entrants with a view to developing them.

The cadet programme is designed to seek year 12 and year 13 students – and others up to 25 years old who are seeking a career. The basis for this is the Level 3 Commercial Road Transport Skills qualification, which industry driver trainers have been involved in the development of with MITO over the last 12 months.

Together with the general Level 3 qualifications and a suite of Level 4 specialist ones (including waste, heavy haulage and groundspread), time and effort has been put into highlighting the skill areas needed. This includes HPMV permits and the importance of our paperwork and systems to log work – described as the lifecycle of consignment documentation.

Together, these qualifications – from basic skills learnt during school at years 12 and 13 and on into the tertiary Level 3 general qualification – will form the backbone of the cadet programme.

The view is that the practical components required to complete the skills programme require actual experience of loading and working within a transport operation, so all companies will need to consider how they can allow school students to work within their organisations in a supervised manner.

We expect to launch this as a “Gateway” programme in the coming months – once it’s been approved by the MITO board, and by the NZ Qualifications Authority (NZQA)....and when suitable resources have been developed.

In order to support school student learners and 88 | Truck & Driver

those under 25 years old, we need to form groups to share training and allow opportunities, hence a large part of our plan is to build and support cluster groups of operators.

In short, these are groups of two or more transport operators located in the same geographical location that can support one or more cadets to gain experience over a set period.

This could be a group in Tauranga allowing the students on the Toi Ohomai course to drive their vehicles for a number of hours each week, to load vehicles and to gain experience for the practical components of the course. There is an additional benefit in that these students are visible to companies for employment.

Another crucial part of our plan is to showcase the industry to school students and the wider public, which takes the form of industry big day outs. We have already held BDOs at the Timaru Raceway in March – led by Aoraki Developments, with key support and sponsorship from Hilton Haulage, Philip Wareing, Rooney Earthmoving, Downlands Deer, Fonterra and many others.

A large event was also held at the Manfeild Raceway in Feilding in June by Talent Central, sponsored by TR Masterdrive, Higgins, McCarthy Transport and Fruehauf. And a Bay of Plenty BDO is scheduled for August 10 and 11 at Baypark Stadium, organised by the Freight and Logistics Action Group, together with the industry.

Over the coming months I will focus on each of the initiatives that SWEP is involved in, to show where opportunities exist for operators to become involved.

This is very much about showcasing the industry and supporting a positive and professional image to dispel often negative perceptions. To this end we’re seeking to create a good employer charter as a tool to highlight what the components of a good employer are, and for companies to sign up and make a commitment. T&D

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Carting fertiliser for Aerospread’s aerial topdressers working around the lower North Island is the daily duty for this new KTL Transport DAF FAT85-510 truck and trailer tipper unit. The sleeper cab 6x4 has a 510 horsepower PACCAR MX engine, an 18-speed Roadranger manual transmission and Meritor MT23 diffs on PACCAR air suspension. It boasts alloys, super singles on the front, a fridge, an alloy front bumper, a central tyre inflation system and a Transport & General alloy tipping body and a matching four-axle trailer – both emblazoned with murals done by Sign IT UP.

Trucks, trailers on a high N

EW TRUCK AND TRAILER SALES WERE on highs in June – the trailer market posting another record-breaker and truck registrations bouncing back after a May slowdown.

The trailer market, after May’s 172 registrations – the alltime best for any month – maintained its momentum in June, with 164 registrations. That’s the best-ever June performance.

And it pushed the second-quarter tally of trailer registrations to an alltime record 482 – and the first-half total to a best-ever 866.

The 510 new truck sales in June wasn’t the New Zealand new truck industry’s best-ever June sales performance….but it deserved to be.

It was well up on May’s 451 registrations and nine ahead of June last year. And it pushed the first-half total for the overall

market (4.5 tonnes GVM and above) to a best-ever 2518…and the Q2 total to 1333 – another alltime best.

The only reason that the June total wasn’t the best ever was the artificially-created 540 registrations in June 2008. That, says industry analyst Robin Yates, was “a one-off freak” – the result of a rush to beat new brake code and exhaust emissions regulations that came into force on July 1 that year.

The 540, says Yates – whose Marketing Hand consultancy prepares this monthly report for NZ Truck & Driver – included over 300 pre-registrations of non-complying trucks that had not been sold.

“In fact, over 150 of them were not even in the country!

Needless to say, registrations for the rest of the year were rather slim.”

The half-year record for the overall truck market was 3.2% Truck & Driver | 91

Registered

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www.trt.co.nz 23,001kg-max GVM 2018

Two new Kenworth T610 SAR tractor units have gone to work for ATL in Central Otago. Both have 600hp Cummins X15 engines, 18-speed Roadranger manual gearboxes and Meritor RT46-160 diffs. They were set up and fitted out by HDPS Engineering.

4501-7500kg GVM 2018 Brand FUSO ISUZU MERCEDES-BENZ HINO IVECO FIAT FOTON RAM HYUNDAI JAC Total

2018 Vol 567 432 348 152 152 142 129 119 118 96 57 41 35 31 22 16 15 15 14 11 6 2518

2018

June % 22.5 17.2 13.8 6.0 6.0 5.6 5.1 4.7 4.7 3.8 2.3 1.6 1.4 1.2 0.9 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.2 100

Vol 127 119 70 24 16 22 21 12 23 29 14 3 7 5 4 3 5 2 2 0 2 510

% 24.9 23.3 13.7 4.7 3.1 4.3 4.1 2.4 4.5 5.7 2.7 0.6 1.4 1.0 0.8 0.6 1.0 0.4 0.4 0.0 0.4 100

3501-4500kg GVM 2018 Brand FIAT MERCEDES-BENZ FORD PEUGEOT TOYOTA RENAULT VOLKSWAGEN CHEVROLET IVECO LDV Total 92 | Truck & Driver

Vol 157 34 11 8 8 5 5 4 1 1 234

% 67.1 14.5 4.7 3.4 3.4 2.1 2.1 1.7 0.4 0.4 100.00

June

% 32.8 23.3 13.0 10.8 8.3 3.8 3.3 2.8 1.6 0.3 100.00

Vol 49 35 12 10 5 4 3 3 3 0 124

% 39.5 28.2 9.7 8.1 4.0 3.2 2.4 2.4 2.4 0.0 100.00

7501-15,000kg GVM

4501kg-max GVM Brand ISUZU FUSO HINO DAF VOLVO KENWORTH MERCEDES-BENZ IVECO UD SCANIA MAN MACK FREIGHTLINER FOTON FIAT RAM HYUNDAI INTERNATIONAL SINOTRUK WESTERN STAR OTHER Total

Vol 189 134 75 62 48 22 19 16 9 2 576

June Vol 28 3 2 5 0 0 0 3 0 0 41

% 68.3 7.3 4.9 12.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 7.3 0.0 0.0 100.00

ISUZU FUSO HINO UD IVECO FOTON MAN HYUNDAI MERCEDES-BENZ DAF SINOTRUK OTHER Total

206 107 104 34 17 12 8 6 3 2 1 1 501

41.1 21.4 20.8 6.8 3.4 2.4 1.6 1.2 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.2 100.00

June 42 40.8 27 26.2 19 18.4 6 5.8 2 1.9 2 1.9 3 2.9 2 1.9 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 103 100.00

15,001-20,500kg GVM 2018 Brand HINO FUSO UD ISUZU IVECO MERCEDES-BENZ SCANIA MAN SINOTRUK DAF Total

Vol 38 29 25 21 11 10 10 2 2 1 149

June

% 25.5 19.5 16.8 14.1 7.4 6.7 6.7 1.3 1.3 0.7 100.00

Vol 9 4 3 8 1 5 3 0 2 0 35

% 25.7 11.4 8.6 22.9 2.9 14.3 8.6 0.0 5.7 0.0 100.00

20,501-23,000kg GVM 2018

June

Brand HINO UD ISUZU FUSO MERCEDES-BENZ

Vol 17 4 2 1 1

% 68.0 16.0 8.0 4.0 4.0

Vol 5 0 1 1 0

% 71.4 0.0 14.3 14.3 0.0

Total

25

100.00

7

100.00

Brand ISUZU VOLVO DAF KENWORTH HINO FUSO SCANIA UD MAN MACK MERCEDES-BENZ IVECO FREIGHTLINER INTERNATIONAL SINOTRUK WESTERN STAR OTHER Total

Vol 208 152 149 142 127 106 86 55 47 41 40 39 35 15 11 11 3 1267

% 16.4 12.0 11.8 11.2 10.0 8.4 6.8 4.3 3.7 3.2 3.2 3.1 2.8 1.2 0.9 0.9 0.2 100.00

June Vol % 41 17.0 16 6.6 24 10.0 22 9.1 27 11.2 38 15.8 26 10.8 14 5.8 11 4.6 3 1.2 4 1.7 4 1.7 7 2.9 2 0.8 0 0.0 0 0.00 2 0.8 241 100.00

Trailers 2018 Brand Vol PATCHELL 110 MTE 82 FRUEHAUF 78 ROADMASTER 64 DOMETT 54 MAXICUBE 50 TMC 50 TRANSPORT TRAILERS 38 TRANSFLEET 28 JACKSON 27 FREIGHTER 21 FAIRFAX 20 TES 18 KRAFT 15 EVANS 12 MILLS-TUI 11 CHIEFTAIN 10 CWS 10 MAKARANUI 9 HAMMAR 8 MTT 8 ADAMS & CURRIE 7 TRINITY 6 HTS 5 COWAN 4 DOUGLAS 4 LUSK 4 TEO 4 WHITE 4 FELDBINDER 3 GLASGOW 3 MD 3 MORBARK 3 MORGAN 3 NICKEL 3 PTE 3 SEC 3 SDC 3 DT5 2 CECO 2 CONVAIR 2 KOROMIKO 2 MANAC 2 2 TIDD OTHER 66 TOTAL 866

% 12.7 9.5 9.0 7.4 6.2 5.8 5.8 4.4 3.2 3.1 2.4 2.3 2.1 1.7 1.4 1.3 1.2 1.2 1.0 0.9 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 7.6 100.00

June Vol 26 15 10 10 9 12 8 8 5 6 8 2 2 5 2 2 1 2 0 1 3 1 0 1 2 1 2 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 10 164

% 15.9 9.1 6.1 6.1 5.5 7.3 4.9 4.9 3.0 3.7 4.9 1.2 1.2 3.0 1.2 1.2 0.6 1.2 0.0 0.6 1.8 0.6 0.0 0.6 1.2 0.6 1.2 0.6 0.6 0.0 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.6 0.0 0.6 0.0 1.8 1.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 6.1 100.00

AP28450

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THANK YOU TRUCK DRIVERS! N A T I O N A L

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k e e eciati on W

17TH - 23RD SEPTEMBER 2018 National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, 17th-23rd September, 2018, is when New Zealand takes the time to honour all professional truck drivers for their hard work and commitment in tackling one of our economy’s most demanding and important jobs. These professional men and women not only deliver our goods safely, securely and on time, they also keep our highways safe.

AP28450

WE NEED EVERYONE IN OUR INDUSTRY TO GET INVOLVED! LOOK OUT FOR MORE EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS ON THIS

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT OLIVIA BEAUCHAMP ON 09 571 3544 OR OLIVIA@TRUCKER.CO.NZ

Recently

Registered

up on 2017’s first-half total of 2439 registrations – a modest increase compared to the 10% to 40% gains common since 2010 (when the firsthalf total was just 720).

Yates wonders: “Could it be that we’re reaching the summit of the market cycle for trucks?”

And he adds: “Trailers, on the other hand, tend to lag a year or two behind the truck cycle and their market is still accelerating.”

June’s 164-trailer total was 18% up on June last year and was the third best month ever. The 482 Q2 total was a 27% improvement on 2017 (which was the previous alltime best) and the 866 for this year’s first half was 22% ahead of last year and 18% ahead of the previous record, set in 2015.

In June, the overall truck market was once again led by Isuzu (127) and Fuso (119) – pushing their 2018 totals out to 567 and 432 respectively.

It was the second time this year that both have exceeded 100 sales in the same month – and it was the fourth 100-plus month in 2018 so far for Isuzu.

Hino (338/70) remained third for the month and the year, while DAF (152/24) joined Volvo (152/16) for fourth-equal YTD. The others held their YTD places, with Kenworth (142/22), MercedesBenz (129/21), Iveco (119/12), UD (118/23) and Scania (96/29) completing the top 10. Next came MAN (57/14), Mack (41/12) and Freightliner (35/7).

In the 3.5-4.5t GVM crossover segment, Fiat reached 157 YTD by adding 28 for the month, followed by Mercedes-Benz (34/3) and Ford (11/2).

In the 4.5-7.5t category, Fuso (189/49) strengthened its lead, ahead of

www.trt.co.nz

Isuzu (134/35), Mercedes-Benz (75/12), Hino (62/10), Iveco (48/5), Fiat (22/4) and Foton (19/3).

Isuzu (206/42) dominated the 7.5-15t segment, in which Fuso (107/27) overtook Hino (104/19) for second place. They were well ahead of UD (34/6), Iveco (17/2), Foton (12/2), MAN (8/3) and Hyundai (6/2).

In the 15-20.5t segment, Hino (38/9) led Fuso (29/4), UD (25/3), Isuzu (21/8) and Iveco (11/1). Mercedes-Benz (10/5) joined Scania (10/3) in sixth-equal, while MAN (2/0) was joined by Sinotruk (2/2), sharing eighth.

Fuso, with one sale, joined the small 20.5-23t segment, in which Hino (17/5) and Isuzu (2/1) also added to their totals.

There were no changes to the order at the top of the premium 23t to max GVM segment, with Isuzu (208/41) followed by Volvo (152/16), DAF (149/24), Kenworth (142/22), Hino (127/27) and Fuso (106/38), which was second only to Isuzu in the registrations for the month.

Next came Scania (86/26) and UD (55/14), while MAN (47/11) swapped places with Mack (41/3) and Mercedes-Benz (40/4) also lost one place. Iveco (39/4) held 12th.

In the booming trailer market, Patchell (110/26) increased its lead, while MTE (82/15) regained second from Fruehauf (78/10). Roadmaster (64/10) remained fourth, followed by Domett (54/9). MaxiCUBE (50/12) moved up to sixth-equal with TMC (50/8), while Transport Trailers (38/8), Transfleet (28/5) and Jackson (27/6) all held their places. Freighter (21/8) moved up two places and Fairfax (20/2) lost one.

Yates notes that if the two MaxiTRANS brands – MaxiCUBE (50/12) and Freighter (21/8) – were combined, the company would be in fourth place YTD. T&D

Half-year brand comparisons 4501kg to max GVM Brand ISUZU FUSO HINO VOLVO DAF KENWORTH MERCEDES-BENZ IVECO UD SCANIA MAN MACK FREIGHTLINER FOTON

2017

2018 1st half 567 432 348 152 152 142 129 119 118 96 57 41 35 31

% 22.5 17.2 13.8 6.0 6.0 5.6 5.1 4.7 4.7 3.8 2.3 1.6 1.4 1.2

1st half 556 472 314 172 133 111 113 104 125 95 66 31 26 1

2016 % 22.8 19.4 12.9 7.1 5.5 4.6 4.6 4.3 5.1 3.9 2.7 1.3 1.1 0.0

1st halfl 521 190 314 120 103 93 72 76 116 60 70 38 52

2010 % 27.0 9.8 16.3 6.2 5.3 4.8 3.7 3.9 6.0 3.1 3.6 2.0 2.7

1st half 161 120 139 16 21 27 38 42 42 35 8 11 15

% 22.4 16.7 19.3 2.2 2.9 3.8 5.3 5.8 5.8 4.9 1.1 1.5 2.1

12

0.6

N/A

FIAT RAM

22 16

0.9 0.6

19 32

0.8 1.3

18 N/A

0.9

7 N/A

HYUNDAI

15

0.6

14

0.6

21

1.1

N/A

INTERNATIONAL SINOTRUK

15 14

0.6 0.6

12 15

0.5 0.6

12 N/A

0.6

13 N/A

1.8

WESTERN STAR JAC

11 1

0.4 0.0

10 1

0.4 0.0

6 2

0.3 0.1

7 N/A

1.0

VOLKSWAGEN

N/A

7

0.3

7

0.4

N/A

CATERPILLAR

N/A

1

0.0

10

0.5

N/A

RENAULT

N/A

1

0.0

3

0.2

N/A

8

0.3

13

0.7

OTHER

5

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2518

Increased share from 2016 94 | Truck & Driver

0.2

2439

1929

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1.0

18

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No change in share from 2017

Recently

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Auckland Foodstuffs North Island contractors John and Janet Baillie have recently put this new FM Volvo tractor unit to work. The 6x4 has a 460hp engine, an I Shift AMT and Volvo diffs on air suspension. The replacement for a Renault 460, the Volvo delivers temperature controlled products around the greater Waikato region, towing an existing 15-metre Fairfax trailer.

This Kenworth T409 is one of 10 recently added to the Linfox fleet – this one carting fuel around the North Island. It has a 510hp PACCAR MX engine and an Eaton UltraShift AMT. Pic Larry Beesley

This new UD Trucks CG31-470 carts logs around Southland and Otago for D.T. Kings Transport. Gary Harding drives the 8x4, which has a 470hp engine, an 18-speed Roadranger manual transmission and Modern Transport Trailers logging gear. Pic Richard Lloyd

Truck & Driver | 95

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Swanson Transport has put this new 700 Series Hino crane truck to work around Auckland. The 10x4 has a 480hp engine, a new Hino Proshift AMT and a lifting tag axle at the rear for added manoeuvrability on job sites. It’s fitted with a Palfinger PK50002-EH crane, with a fly-jib that pushes its reach out to 32m – where it’s still able to lift 340kg.

Southfuels in Dunedin has put its first new DAF CF85-FAD to work, covering the lower South Island. The 8x4 has a 510hp PACCAR MX10 engine, an AS-Tronic AMT with a three-stage Intarder and Meritor MT23 rear axles on PACCAR AG400 suspension. Seaview Engineering built its 14,000-litre tank body and the pumping gear.

96 | Truck & Driver

Canterbury and Otago excavation and hard landscaping specialist Mane Contracting has put this new UD Trucks PK17-280 4x2 tipper to work. It has a 280hp engine and six-speed UD transmission on spring rear suspension and is fitted with a Winter Engineering tipper body.

Pic Alix Houmard

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• SteelTop Canopies • Tonneau Covers • Nudge Bars • Side Steps • Headlight Covers • Bonnet Guards • Bed-Liners • Tailgate Assist - Prolift

Paddy - m: 021 335 739 e: paddy.its@gmail.com

• Trailer painting • Custom Painting

• Fleet spec painting • Sand blasting

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Automatic Self Levelling NTS-NZ Air Suspension Seat Integrated 3-Point Seat Belt Armrests & Head Restraint Optional Extras

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Geemac Trading (NZ) Limited.

Phone (09) 630 1856 or Fax (09) 630 1855 email: sales@geemac.co.nz www.geemac.co.nz www.isringhausen.co.nz

Th th

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Ap TD27586

Isringhausen leads the way in the application of modern technology to driver’s seating.

ISRI has a full range of driver’s seats to suit every application.

Note: Seat fabric may vary from what is shown. Armrests and head restraints are optional accessories.

T

New Zealand’s First 1000 Macks

From the stock carriers of the South Island to the off-highway loggers of Kaingaroa, Mack trucks were seen hauling the biggest loads in every corner of our country.

Soon these mighty machines will be celebrating 50 years of service to Kiwis and to commemorate the occasion, Ed Mansell, Paul Livsey and Grant Gadsby have collected the best photographs of these trucks, supplied by many of New Zealand’s top truck photographers, to combine into a book of the finest photography.

The book follows the “lives” of the first thousand Mack trucks assembled at Motor Truck Distributors in Palmerston North, from brand spanking new, through their subsequent owners until their inherent demise, or in some cases complete preservation or restoration.

Due for release in 2022 to coincide with fifty years of service, we are asking for expressions of interest in purchasing this complete anthology of New Zealand’s first thousand Mack trucks.

The book will be a hard covered, coffee table styled book in full colour, of approximately 500 pages. We intend to limit the number to one thousand copies, allowing any Mack owners the possibility of purchasing their trucks equivalent book number.

Once your order is placed you will be guaranteed to receive a copy should you wish to proceed at the time of publication. No payment is expected at this time, but we may require a deposit be paid early in 2022.

A price indication is approximately $135 plus, but this may change due to the quantity finally printed, and inflation, over which we have no control.

This book will not be reprinted after the initial production run.

To order your copy please email: mansell@orcon.net.nz or grant.gadsby3@xtra.co.nz

TD28428

Numbers will be limited so get your name on the list for this once in a life-time book.

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MANUFACTURERS OF QUALITY ALUMINIUM ANCILLARY EQUIPMENT, SERVICING THE TRANSPORT, MARINE AND AGRICULTURE INDUSTRIES

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PURCHASE A BINDER TODAY! KEEP YOUR COLLECTION IN TOP CONDITION For your binder simply fill in this form and return it to: NEW ZEALAND TRUCK & DRIVER MAGAZINE along with $32.00 (GST, P&P incl) Name: Address: Phone: Fax: Visa

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LOUIE AND HIS HARD CASE BUGGERS Well known forester and hunter Lance Duncan retired from the forestry industry then sat down and wrote a book. It’s the tale of his life and is full of yarns from many years of working in forestry and hunting and those people he met along the way.

Its full of humour, our proof reader was in stitches when she worked on this manuscript. It hasn’t been sterilised it’s written as Lance tells it and anybody who knows him will know you will get it straight.

If you are easily offended then it’s probably not for you.

Get your copy now, for a great read and some real entertaining yarns.

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SICK OF THE GREASY MESS??

There is a better option when it comes to maintaining and protecting your Fifth Wheel / Turntables / B-trains Dr Diesel offers a new solution to the Road Transport Industry, for those wanting to lubricate and protect their turntables without the mess of grease.

GT460 ULTRA GOLD, a technologically advanced, fully synthetic, environmentally friendly alternative to grease. Also compatible with greaseless pad systems.

GT460 ULTRA GOLD is the clean and easy way to keep your Fifth Wheel lubricated and protected. Outstanding performance in high and low temperatures, wet or dry conditions.

Suitable for use in Auto greaser units: Please call for more information.

AVAILABLE IN: 1 LITRE BOTTLES 450g GREASE GUN TUBES CAULKING GUN TUBES ONE SHOT 250ml TUBES

Phone Kevin

021 811 057

415 Lower Queen Street, Richmond, Nelson.

Office: 03 544 4172, Mobile: 021 811 057 sales@drdiesel.nz | www.drdiesel.nz

MAN POWER TGX 26.640 MORE PULLING POWER. MORE STOPPING POWER.

The most powerful MAN truck ever available in New Zealand, the TGX 26.640, is now here.

At 640PS (471kW) and 3000Nm (2213 ft.lb) it has more pulling power than ever.

And with up to 900kW combined brake output1 it has more stopping power than ever.

The TGX 26.640 also meets current Euro 6C regulations and is one of the cleanest and most efficient MAN trucks.

Plus you can get it with the latest leading edge technology and safety features, all making for a very powerful argument.

Adaptive Cruise Control Land Guard System BrakeMatic EBS Electronic Stability Program Dynamic Stability Program Roll Over Protection Emergency Brake Assist Antijackknife Brake Emergency Brake Signal Turbo EVBec engine brake EfficientRoll

www.man.co.nz North Island: Penske Commercial Vehicles 0800 728 695 South Island: Heavy Trucks 03 376 4305

1

Maximum combined output of optional TurboEVBec and retarder.

Some listed features are optional equipment.

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Entry Form

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Enter your fleet colour scheme in the PPG Transport Imaging Awards: Just fill out this entry form (or a photocopy of it) and send it into New Zealand Truck & Driver.

Be in with a chance to win in the annual PPG Transport Imaging Awards.

Contact name name & position in company: ________________________________________________________________ Location:

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Phone numbers: __________________________________________________________________________________________

TD16163

Fleet or company name:___________________________________________________________________________________

Please send a selection of photos of one particular truck in your fleet colours. It’s desirable (but not compulsory) to also send shots of other trucks that show off the colours. Make sure your images are supplied as large format files taken on a fine setting on a digital camera. The files must be at least 3MB. All entries become the property of Allied Publications Ltd. All entries property of AlliedIMAGING Publications Send yourbecome entry tothe PPG TRANSPORT A Ltd. S AWARD Send your entry to: PPG TRANSPORT IMAGING AWARDS 1642 or email to waynemunro@xtra.co.nz Allied Publications Ltd PO Box 112062 Penrose Auckland Allied Publications Ltd, PO Box 112062, Penrose, Auckland 1642, or email to waynemunro@xtra.co.nz (Remember do not reduce size of images to transmit by email, send two at a time on separate emails if large files.)

(Do not reduce the size of images to send them by email – send large files one or two at a time in separate emails if necessary).

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RANSPORT OPERATOR MIKE MATHIESON AND the first driver hired for his then-new Nationwide Livestock business together came up with the unusual baby blue base colour for his trucks.

And they dreamt-up the livery, with its map of New Zealand, a big N and L and arrows top and bottom indicating a circle.

But still he gives a lot of the credit for Nationwide’s victory as the annual winner of the PPG Transport Imaging Awards for 2017/2018 to Mount Maunganui truck signwriting and imaging specialist Cliff Mannington.

“Old Cliffy from Truck Signs…..he’s a pretty talented man, that fella,” says Mathieson.

“We sent a blank canvas around there for him – I just gave him a rough outline of what we were looking for, and he just went ahead and did some drawings up…

“We didn’t have much of a clue at the start…. We said: ‘We want something different – come up with some ideas

Truck Signs’ Cliff Mannington is credited with turning the chosen baby blue colour and some design ideas into a champion livery 2 | Truck & Driver

and some stripes….’

“And so we basically just let him go. He’s someone who’s got a real passion for trucks, you know – and he’s got a real pride in what he does.”

Apart from their ideas on the branding, Mathieson really only stipulated that the pale blue base colour was a must – simply because “there was no-one really around in that lighter blue. There’s plenty of darker blues, but in that shiny, metallic blue there was no-one…”

The livery Mannington came up with was pretty much accepted as-is by Mathieson. It comprises double silver striping along the sides of the crates and cabs – zig-zagging in a stylised Z on the driver’s side (reversed on the other side), with metallic orange shading airbrushed onto the vinyl on the cab sections. The main stripes turn down and out each side of the grille.

The logo, which features on the crates, aerofoils and doors, has a green NZ map, with N and L

TRANSPORT IMAGING AWARDS

each side, and arrows circling the country that are in the same silver and orange as the stripes. Intricate hand-painted scrollwork, picked out in orange, adds the finishing touches.

Mathieson reckons that he was sold on the colour scheme from the outset – and there’s never been any argument or discussion about it – not then nor since.

“We haven’t changed anything at all,” apart from minor mods Mannington has made to best suit the Kenworth, International, Freightliner and Scania trucks that have followed the company’s original Isuzu.

The Waikato fleet took out the annual PPG Awards in a very tight contest. The judges, comprising Awards sponsor PPG Industries New Zealand’s Mark Brearley and Tony Thorpe, Road Transport Forum technical manager Kerry Arnold and NZ Truck & Driver publisher Trevor Woolston and editor Wayne Munro, were torn between the standout finalists – featured in NZ Truck & Driver over the past year.

In the final count Nationwide just pipped Dunsandelbased E.D. Swain, with its standout red, black and white colour scheme, by one vote.

Another iconic national fleet livery – the bold white and blue, with red stripes, of Allied Petroleum – was just another point behind Swains, in third.

PPG’s Tony Thorpe describes the winning colour scheme as “very bold and easy to recognise.”

Munro says that the Nationwide livery is “really distinctive – a nice blue, mixed with lots of detailing in the branding.”

Arnold gives credit to the winning colour scheme as “simple and clean” and Woolston rates it for its “great use of design elements.”

When told of the PPG Transport Imaging Awards win, Mathieson was delighted: “Perfect. Oh that’s bloody good,

yeah.”

And yes, he says, the colour scheme does get a lot of favourable comment: “People are always impressed…we get a lot of feedback – a lot of advertising off them. People see them (the trucks) going by, all over the country.”

Some farmers, he reckons, “can’t believe what drives up their driveway – after some of the other gear, you know.”

Mathieson, who set up Nationwide just five years ago and already has 10 trucks running in his operation – four of them owner/driver vehicles – says his accountant suggested the company name, because it was so apt for the company’s national reach.

The first truck to wear the livery, with its metallic Velocity Blue base colour, was the second Nationwide Livestock truck – a new International Eagle.

Company trucks that haven’t come out of the factory in Velocity Blue have been painted by Fleet Image in Te Awamutu – along with the crates, which are built by Nationwide, on Jackson Enterprises decks and trailers.

Mathieson says his Dad Robin, who’s been in the road transport industry for decades, brought him up to appreciate clean, good-looking trucks.

“We run a pretty tight ship in terms of tidy gear. We have people in to wash the trucks every second weekend – they’re scrubbed on the outside for the drivers. And everyone’s got access to washing and materials.

Customers appreciate the effort put into presentation: “They see nice, tidy gear and guys coming in and doing the job right and, you know, you get the repeat business. So that’s a key thing for us.”

And that baby blue paint? That, he reckons, has turned out to be an inspired choice – because it “hides a lot of the dirt. It’s got to be completely filthy to look bad.” T&D

All photos Gerald Shacklock

Truck & Driver | 3

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