14 minute read
ENCOURAGING EXCELLENCE
ENCOURAGING
ENCOURAGING EXCELLENCE
The Livestock, Bulk and Rural Carriers Association’s efforts in boosting the ranks of young drivers in road transport is paying dividends. Warren Caves reports
DEPENDING on whose study you reference, the average age of an Australian truck driver is somewhere around the 47-years-old mark.
Based on this figure, it would suggest there are also a high percentage of truck drivers working within the transport industry well in excess of 50-years-old.
On one hand, this is a positive in that the vast majority of the driver pool should, theoretically, have many years of driving experience and a, generally speaking, higher skill set that goes with it. It’s a good thing.
On the negative side, however, these figures could also indicate that as the current workforce retires or moves into different vocations, there is not a significantly high enough number of younger recruits entering the industry to take their place. We have been seeing the effect of this for some years now, indicated by the need to import overseas drivers to fill the gap.
Initiatives to make the career of truck driving more appealing should be actively encouraged by all within the industry if we are to adequately address any workforce shortfall, and promote the trucking industry as a viable and rewarding career choice.
Proactive mentorship programs and awards recognising excellence are just small ways in which young driver excellence can be fostered and encouraged early on in the piece to acknowledge a job well done.
Hard won young driver awards with stringent performance
Below: Mick Maloney of Maloney Livestock Transport (left) congratulates Matt Benseman on winning the LBRCA Young Driver of the Year award
Above: Matt Benseman with a couple of his “co-workers” in Tamworth
Below: There’s a Slim Dusty moniker on each MLT truck
Bottom: The current all-Kenworth MLT fleet
Opposite top: Matt Benseman drives this six month-old T659 Kenworth for the Maloneys criteria should be worn as a badge of honour and something to aspire to. An award should take pride of place on the mantle-piece in the pool room.
The Livestock, Bulk and Rural Carriers Association (LBRCA) in partnership with Safe-Work New South Wales has been running its annual Young Driver of the Year Award since 2015, to recognise outstanding young heavy vehicle drivers that demonstrate a best practice approach to driving and safety.
The annual award is hotly contested with stringent criteria to be met by all nominees. Nominations must come from an LBRCA member and nominees must be aged between 21 and 35-years-old. Nominees must also be either an LBRCA member or work directly for a member.
According to Bec Coleman, chief operating officer of the LBRCA: “The award is our way of identifying excellence in young drivers and moulding them into industry leaders; that’s what we aim to do with the award. This is highlighted by the progress of our inaugural award winner Reggie Sutton. Since receiving his award in 2015, Reggie has since gone on to currently hold the position of vice-president of the LBRCA.
“Each year we receive seven or eight nominations who must complete the entry to include two independent references, information about the nominees driving and employment history and answer a series of industry relevant questions and typical scenarios and how they are handled in day-to-day life on the road,” Bec explains.
“These nomination forms once received make up 50 per cent of the judging process. In the past couple of years we have tightened the criteria even further to require a clean police check and an untarnished driving record.”
A panel of judges comprising former award winners, award sponsor representatives and award steering committee members evaluate the nominees’ answers and credentials blindly before trimming the list of nominees down to three finalists. The chosen finalists are then notified and invited to the LRBCA annual conference.
At the conference the finalists are then interviewed and judged by a five-member panel, which includes two representatives from Safe Work NSW.
The award winner, once chosen, then goes on to represent the LBRCA and young drivers as a safety ambassador for Safe Work NSW. Additionally, the winner receives an industry study tour prize to the value of $5,000.
Stock experience
The LBRCA annual general meeting for 2021 was held in Dubbo on March 6, with the Young Driver of the Year trophy awarded to Matt Benseman of Tamworth NSW.
Thirty-three-year-old New Zealand-born Matt works for Maloney Livestock Transport (MLT), also based in Tamworth.
Prior to joining MLT, Matt spent eight to nine years working on a broadacre farming property in Goondiwindi, Queensland, before moving to Tamworth, where his stock work skills gleaned on the dairy farms of New Zealand would prove a valuable asset to his next career of the modern-day drover.
Mick and Carolyn Maloney commenced operations of MLT in December 2018, at which point Matt started with the company as a driver. Suitably impressed by Matt’s manner and professionalism on the job since then, Carolyn nominated Matt for the LBRCA Young Driver of the Year Award.
Originally purchasing four second-hand trucks to kick MLT off, these trucks have since been traded up for new models, with the all-Kenworth fleet size now standing at six company trucks and four full time sub-contractors.
From the company’s Tamworth base, livestock movements are carried out all over Australia in predominantly B-double configurations.
Starting a livestock carrying business in the midst of a crippling drought didn’t seem to adversely affect the MLT operation. According to Mick there was a good supply of work, be it moving stock to better pastures (until they could no longer be found) then ultimately to abattoirs for meat.
Eventually conditions improved and the job of re-stocking began with pastoralists needing to replenish dwindling herds thinned out by the drought.
“At one point we were carting a lot of calves out of Daly Waters in the Northern Territory to Guyra, NSW, for restocking,” Mick says.
Matt can be found carting stock all over during his 11-day stints away from home – Longreach, Ballarat, Kempsey and anywhere in between or wherever the livestock needs to go.
“Usually once a month I will travel over to Nundroo in South Australia to load sheep from WA into NSW,” he says.
Mick goes on to explain: “These sheep are brought across to Nundroo by WA carriers and placed into holding yards. Our guys will usually get over there Tuesday evening to load Wednesday morning and have the sheep into places like
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Top: With Matt Benseman behind the wheel the T659 Kenworth goes as far as Longreach in Queensland
Above right: Matt Benseman has been part of the Maloney Livestock Transport team since day one
Below: Flashback: Reggie Sutton, the 2015 LBRCA Young Driver of the Year Award winner, is now the association’s vice-president – livestock. Photo by Greg Bush
Bottom: The Byrne stock trailers are a very recent acquisition for MLT Dubbo, Trangie or Orange in the NSW central west by Thursday afternoon, completing the sheep’s trans-continental trip, which started near Perth on Monday morning.
“Doing it this way means we don’t have to take our trucks out of our eastern Australia operations for the whole trip across to Perth. This keeps our fleet available to service one of our main clients in the Kempsey area of NSW,” he explains.
Slim Dusty tags
Matt’s current stead is a six-month old T659 Kenworth that has just clocked up 100,000km. The Kenworth is coupled to a set of brand new Byrne stock crates.
Unlike the drovers of old, who had a mere handful of horses to move the mob, Matt has the pleasure of 600 X15 horses (447kW) provided by Cummins and 2,150ft-lb of torque to keep things spinning. An 18-speed Roadranger transmission is used to swap cogs manually.
Each of MLT’s trucks has the title of a Slim Dusty song inscribed on the side of the bunk. Mick, a big Slim fan, blames his dad, whom he describes as being a “Slim Dusty tragic”.
Mick says he tries, wherever possible, to give Matt a threeday break on his stints at home. Matt adds that reasonably regularly he manages to get a night at home with his partner Amy in the middle of his 11-day roster, working on advanced fatigue management (AFM).
Matt enjoys the life on the road and partner (soon to be wife) Amy is very understanding of the truckie’s life. Working in transport herself, and having a father and brother who do similar work, Amy has been somewhat conditioned to the truck driver’s timetable.
“My truck is fitted out with an inverter, fridge/freezer and microwave, so I can heat up pre-prepared meals I take from home,” Matt says.
“It’s hard to find a decent feed sometimes, so I’m pretty selfsufficient.
“We all try to keep our driving hours within the window of 7am to midnight. There are some exceptions at times due to loading and unloading constraints but mostly it tends to work out.”
Driver encouragement
Mick is quite involved with the LRBCA Young Driver Award, having had a colleague awarded the prize when he was working for another employer.
“I like to encourage younger drivers to get involved in the industry; the lack of young drivers coming into this game is one of the biggest challenges the industry is facing,” Mick says.
Janelle Edgar, MLT’s compliance and training manager, agrees. “We like to create a space where drivers feel appreciated and safe in their workplace. That’s why people like Matt thrive – they have a good environment to work in, which MLT has put in place.”
I have seen this harmonious working environment first- hand, operating from a small office at the rear of their Tamworth property.
After a few photos were taken down at the main yard, I was invited into the Maloney’s home for a coffee and chat (and an offer of some eggs which I had to decline after overindulging at the motel buffet breakfast earlier). Mick says their family dining room doubles as the lunch room with any staff or visitors welcomed warmly.
“I won’t employ anyone who I won’t have in my home,” Mick explains.
Matt says MLT is great to work for and he really gets looked after. He says it feels good to be appreciated for what he’s achieved by receiving the Young Driver of the Year Award and he plans to utilise the $5,000 trip prize to return to New Zealand for two weeks and visit some industry facilities, including an abattoir, after which he will take the opportunity to catch up with family while there.
The legal view Sarah Marinovic
So, while the vehicle is only 500kg over the permit limits, the driver will be breached for being eight tonnes over. This can be the difference between paying a relatively small infringement notice as opposed to being sent to court where much higher fines can be imposed.
Conditions apply
DOUBLE CHECKING
Whether you’re a driver or operator, it’s important to be aware of compliance requirements
IF YOU rely on mass and dimension permits, it’s important to keep up- to-date with the conditions of your exemptions because even small breaches can lead to large fines.
This month, I’m encouraging operators to take a moment to review their permits and make sure they’re complying with each requirement. Taking a few minutes now to check can avoid huge headaches down the track.
Anyone who has used a mass or dimension permit will know there are a lot of terms and conditions. Some are obviously important, such as the allowable mass or routes. Others are more administrative, such as whether you need to carry the notice or permit with you in the truck.
The law, though, views them all as mandatory and requires strict compliance. Failing to comply with a condition causes several possible problems.
Firstly, not complying with permit or notice conditions is an offence. Even simple things like forgetting to carry a copy of the permit can result in a hefty fine. A court that finds someone guilty of contravening a condition of an exemption can impose fines of over $6,000 for individuals or $30,000 for corporations.
The second, and often even more costly problem, is that failing to comply with every condition of the exemption can invalidate it. This means that the higher limits under the exemption are disregarded when calculating whether your vehicle is breaching mass or dimension limits. Instead, you are subject to the general limits.
As you can imagine, this could mean that an otherwise compliant vehicle, or one that is only a small amount over its limits, is now treated as being significantly over the limits.
For example, imagine a person who is operating under a notice that allows a 49.5-tonne gross vehicle mass (GVM) as opposed to the usual 42 tonne under the general limits. If the vehicle was slightly overloaded to 50 tonne, then the driver is in breach of the conditions of the notice and will lose the benefit of it. Now, the overload will be judged against the 42-tonne GVM general limits.
SARAH MARINOVIC is a principal solicitor at Ainsley Law – a firm dedicated to traffic and heavy vehicle law. She has focused on this expertise for over a decade, having started her career prosecuting for the RMS, and then using that experience as a defence lawyer helping professional drivers and truck owners. For more information email Sarah at sarah@ainsleylaw.com.au or phone 0416 224 601 It’s also important to remember that the requirements to comply with the conditions applies to both drivers and operators. So, no matter what your role in the industry, it’s important to be proactive about knowing which conditions apply to you.
Double checking your obligations doesn’t have to be a difficult thing. A simple starting point is just to make sure you have printed a copy of each permit and notice that applies to your vehicle and have read them. Take a moment to consider whether you are following each of the conditions.
If you’re an operator, it’s also a good idea to make sure your employees have read the conditions and signed a written confirmation that they understand and follow them.
If in doubt about any of the requirements it’s a good idea to seek advice. The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator hotlines can assist. Or our team of lawyers at Ainsley Law are always happy to help.
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