CAREER IN FOCUS
HEAVY HITTER
For families heading north on a holiday in the 1980s, driving the Hume Highway between Seymour and Wodonga could be a scary gauntlet to run. Bad behaviour from truck drivers had reached its peak and everyday road users and holidaymakers were often left white-knuckled as they dealt with semi-trailers capable of reaching 160km/h barrelling down the busy two-lane route. Many truckies were known for speeding, tailgating, drug use, driving over double lines, cargo overloading, insecure loads and travelling together in long, nose-to-tail convoys along the stretch of road. The community was fed-up. So the Victorian Government gave Victoria Police the tough task of taming the Hume. In September 1985, a trucking industry police taskforce was established – the first of its kind in Australia – and among its founding officers was Leading Senior Constable Laurie Carter. Ldg Sen Const Carter worked in the taskforce – now named the Heavy Vehicle Unit (HVU) – for almost 35 years until his retirement in March this year brought an end to his 50-year career with Victoria Police. Prior to joining the then-unnamed taskforce, Ldg Sen Const Carter had cut his road policing teeth during several years at the Traffic Operations Group and on a secondment with the Country Roads Board. It was there he learned important and difficult lessons about road safety that would be formative for his work in policing the trucking industry. “One of the crashes that stuck with me was a triple fatality in Sunbury,” Ldg Sen Const Carter said. “A little aluminium ladder somehow jumped out the back of a plumber’s ute.
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POLICE LIFE | WINTER 2020
