Fair Go for Owner Drivers

from WA TRANSPORT MAGAZINE - NOVEMBER 2020 edition

$27 million WA Black Spot Program

Over to you A FAIR GO FOR OWNER DRIVERS by Ray Pratt

HUGE SHORTAGE OF TRUCK DRIVERS

Australia has a huge shortage of truck drivers and with Western Australia experiencing a mining boom and with the approach of the grain season the lack of truck drivers here is reaching crisis point.

The talk is that we should be making it easier for people to become truck drivers to alleviate this shortfall. Two ideas being talked about have been the suggestion that we lower the age of new truck drivers trying to enter the industry and the other alternative is to bring in the army to get some bums in seats to manage this shortage of drivers.

It all sounds good but do we really want to have inexperienced drivers on the road. It takes a lot of skill and training to become a competent truck driver.

For many years the warning signs have predicted that we are never going to have enough truck drivers for the future. Unless there is a major recruitment and training of prospective drivers the situation is not going to change.

The industry is blaming the government for not stepping up and putting in place a means of recruiting, training, and educating new drivers to the industry.

The government is blaming the transport industry and major transport companies for their lack of interest in training schemes that will ensure we have a good supply of new drivers.

This blame game can go on forever but the fact is there needs to be a joint effort by both parties to come together and provide the answers so that we can alleviate this crisis problem.

We can bury our heads in the sand and carry on but the problem will not go away. Transport companies have hardly ever embraced it upon themselves to recruit and train new drivers to ensure they always have an adequate supply of drivers.

Transport companies have complained for years that profit margins are too tight

Transport companies have complained for years that profit margins are too tight for them to spend money on training

for them to spend money on training.

We have plenty of truck driving schools and they are always busy training prospective drivers to get their heavy vehicle driver's license but that’s all they do. They really only train you to get your driver's license. They do not train you on how to be a competent truck driver.

We need to further train these people with skills they need to ensure they become competent truck drivers and this needs to happen before they can take to the road as trained drivers.

Whatever the answer to get bums in seats we must not compromise on safety. The introduction of 457 visas many years ago allowed a lot of untrained drivers into the country and it was obvious that they were not trained to our standard. A spate of accidents and with the media-loving a good story about trucks it was not a good look.

Truck drivers have battled an image problem for many years so the last thing we need is unnecessary publicity about bad truck drivers. There needs to a wellplanned effort to get new truck drivers into seats of trucks. We certainly do not need band-aid measures. ~ Keep it Safe, Ray Pratt.