Having said that, every time I passed one of these Quads, I was hanging out there on the ‘hospital side’ of the road for around 500 metres
snaking their way up the highway towards me. Ninety two of them! On average, that's more than one ‘every’ five kms for 450 kms…more than one ‘every’ three minutes for four and a half hours. Is this sending warning bells to anyone else and where to start? I have found that the Quads travel closer to 90kph than 100. My current truck of choice is a rigid six Tonner and is fairly zippy with good acceleration so that when the way is clear I can get out and past and back in again a lot easier than some. This is assuming that I have timed it right and arrived at his back corner just when there is a long straight section with no double white line and more importantly not one of those (one every three minutes) incoming Quads heading towards me. Having said that, every time I passed one of these Quads, I was hanging out there
on the ‘hospital side’ of the road for around 500 metres. And this is me - a zippy nine metre (total length) rigid. How other Semi's and Road trains manage? It doesn't bear thinking about. To be fair, a number of the Quad drivers will back it off and indicate that it is clear to come around, but I found that few of them use their CB's to communicate maybe the trucks aren't fitted with them? Another serious issue I found was when it was raining. Coming up behind a Quad to pass him, I called him to tell him that I was coming round and pulled out. You would expect a bit of road spray from the rain but as I was passing the gap between the trailers the turbulence and swirling spray made me totally blind. Until I got clear of the front of his truck I couldn't see more than two feet in front of me and had to trust the other driver with my life. Truly a terrifying experience and one that thankfully I did not have to repeat that trip, These Quads are a hot topic in the industry especially for people who travel this stretch of road regularly and they tell me that the majority of the Quads are 'hot seat' trucks. The driver drives from the mine to Port and then hops out for his fatigue break whilst another driver hops in and heads back. The first driver, at the completion of his fatigue break, then gets the next truck that comes in before he heads back. This in itself has huge inherent safety risks as every truck is different with different strengths and weaknesses and chopping and changing vehicles adds more risks due to this unfamiliarity. Quads are used as a money making exercise - there is obviously more profit in pulling a Quad than three trailers and
billions of this money goes to our economy through royalties. Over the next four years, WA is expecting to collect $28 billion from resources royalties, mostly from iron ore. It collected $11.3 billion from iron ore miners in 2021 and expects to collect $9.1 billion this financial year. This is great for WA’s economy, great for Australia’s economy but what about the people who have to risk their lives travelling that stretch of road during this. Sadly, it seems that safety and human life comes in a poor second and you have to ask if there is any investment being made by the Government/s into ensuring the safety and integrity of the road itself. You can’t tell me that a continuous or even intermittent trips (with return) of 92 x 200 tonne vehicles is ‘not’ causing any damage to the road over a continued period. There are more questions than answers here and we will be following up with the relevant bodies to find out what we can about the future of this stretch of road and its use by the Super Quads. Many in our industry believe that safety is already being compromised for all users on this stretch of road… The ‘general consensus in industry is that about one Quad per week or five per month is being lost to rolling, flipping, falling over or being involved in an accident. Many truck drivers will no longer use the Great Northern Highway - instead driving the extra few hundred kms to go up and down via the North West Coastal Highway instead - thus reducing their interactions with these vehicles. What are your experiences along this stretch of road? Email karen@angrychicken.com.au to share what you think. WATM • March 2022
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