The Real Road Toll

The total road toll for Oz is only 1500. All but 70 on all other
roads? Hmmm...

Theo

 

..

They did the same for drink-driving too when they wanted to prove their
point. It's called spin-doctoring or presenting wanted figures, the
government (on either side) have been doing it for years, the media loves it
as it makes for sensational stories but I think the best at it are the
feminists. ( now aint that going to stir the pot )

 

something like 25% in Vietnam (scary aint it). Strafe first ask questions
later!!

 

Isn't that where drive about in a suicidal state with 4 of your mates as
passengers?

Al

 

youre an idiot mate. how do you think you get your food, clothes, petrol,
EVERYTHING from any shop? trucks, ya fuckin dipshit. from what youve said in
this post, its probably YOU who shouldnt be on the road. know-it-all,
generalising wanker who would never put a foot wrong, huh?

here are possible arguments to what ive said:

-freight should be on rail - you build the infrastructure mate, good luck
though.
-trucks should be smaller - it will be you the consumer paying more becuase
they have to carry less freight in a single truck.

 

you get a little upset about things, don't you?

that is exactly what I was talking about, the infrastructure was there(for
the population at the time) then they sacked all the workers and stopped
using it.

you would need smaller trucks for the localised transport off the trains,
those trucks would not be on the highway.

if all roads were dual carriageway then the trucks could still work, but as
it stands they don't help things now.
AND don't forget all railway crossings would need to be upgraded to fit the
plan.
but I doesn't matter because nothing will ever change, a human life is
unimportant to the business of making money.

 

I hope you die in a fiery crash

 

The average annual road toll for the decade 1994-2003 was just over
1800/year

 

I'm just waiting for the Iraq toll to get higher than 9/11, we're only about
300 shy at the moment. Then we'll see some fun and games in Washington.

 

IME the typical short-haul truckie tends to be a very good driver.
Around the big cities, truck drivers are generally courteous, and do an
amazing job at avoiding getting things with 4 wheels tangled up in them
- especially considering the stupid things that drivers of 4-wheeled
vehicles do.
Get out on the highways and in the country towns however, and it seems
the further you are from a capital city, the more likely you are to find
a complete and utter moron in a truck. Not saying they are all like
that, but I have encountered a lot of very dangerous activities
performed by truck drivers. Things like...
* red-light running in towns
* changing lanes while a vehicle is overtaking pushing the overtaking
vehicle into oncoming traffic
* driving down the centre line and not moving back to their side for
oncoming cars
*tailgating
*dangerous speeding (despite their trailer swaying into the oncoming
traffic)
*tailing on high-beam (which means high beam plus their spotties)
*overtaking when unsafe and pulling back over before the trailer is
fully past
*pulling onto the highway from a sideroad in front of traffic - the list
goes on.
Now I know there are lots of morons in cars, but in the country I find
that it's the trucks that are more likely to do stupid things. Any day
of the week, any time of the day, I can guarantee that if I were to
drive 50km on any of the 6 highways that leave the town I live in, turn
around and come back, that in that 100km I would encounter at least 1
truck doing one of the above activities or something equally dangerous.
I could also guarantee that if I was to take a 1 hour drive in the city
that I'd encounter a car driver doing something stupid too. But cars in
the city are a lot more common than trucks on the highway (so
statistically the moron/car ratio is much lower than the moron/truck),
and a braindead driver behind the wheel of a 1.5tonne car doing 60km/hr
is much less of an issue than a braindead driver behind the wheel of a
50tonne truck doing 110km/hr.

I used to live very close to a busy rail line that carried coal trains.
In fact my yard bordered onto the rail verge, and we were 1 house away
from a level crossing. The trains came through roughly hourly, 24
hours/day, 6 days/week. Another place I lived was about a block from a
major highway through town. The hourly trains blowing their klaxon at
the level crossing were nowhere near as disturbing as the idiot truck
drivers using their exhaust brakes in the middle of a residential area.
The trucks would wake me far more frequently than the trains did. I
currently live about 1km from the highway, and in the time it has so far
taken me to type this sentence I've heard 2 trucks hit their exhaust
brakes. Even at this distance, with the windows closed because of the
cold, they are loud enough that you'll occasionally miss a word of two
on the TV. They are loud enough that they occasionally wake the kid, and
occasionally wake me. I'd rather trains any day to truck drivers who
are too friggin stupid (or discourteous, one of the two) to understand
the meaning of a sign that reads "RESIDENTIAL AREA. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM
USING EXHAUST BRAKES THROUGH TOWN".

Yes, give me one train instead of 100 trucks any day of the week. Let
the trains do the long-haul stuff, and leave the trucks for the local
deliveries. Such an outcome would be safer, less damaging to our roads,
and give cheaper freight. And before people start fussing about double
handling (pickup on truck, load to rail, unload to truck for delivery),
the majority of long haul road freight is transported on different
vehicles for the long-haul portion and the local portion anyway. The
only thing that changes is the type of vehicle doing the long-haul. Rail
would slow things down a little, although if a little was spent on
infrastructure (bearing in mind that the last 40 years have seen rail
infrastructure in this country run down dramatically) it can be at least
as fast, if not faster, than road traffic.

True - but in the case of long-haul, the people that f it up are more
often than not the truck drivers anyway.

 

Pass the cling wrap, boy.

 

well done!

 

you are completely wrong. out on the highway, it is car drivers every single
night (and im out every single night) who drive on highbeam, overtake then
slowdown again, weave in and out etc.

im a car driver myself lots of people somehow think truck drivers have never
or do not drive a car. the simple fact is there are idiots everywhere, but
dont you even try to say truck drivers out of the cities are arseholes, they
are by far and away better behaved in general than any other drivers on the
road, and have the at fault crash % to back it up. thats without even
calling in km's travelled per period.

your post is a shining example of using EVERYTHING possible to make your
point, which is based on generalisations, hyperbole and emotion. its a
beautiful stunt, but most will see through it.

the whole rail argument is great, but if you can figure out a way to build
rail infrastructure to allow freigh to get from say syd to melb in 10 hours
including the time it takes for the train to be loaded and unloaded and
ready for pickup with ZERO delay, then no express company will go near it,
no refrigerated company will go near it.

there has been a lot more non urgent freight being placed onto rail, but it
ha s along way to go and this govt would not be interested in designing a
genuine solution.

right about now i could reel off 150 different stories about idiot car
drivers, but i wont becuase its pointless and the tool of someone who doesnt
really know what theyre talking about.

 

A Saus29 sizzle?

Al

 

Thank you for the complement but its not true to say that short haul
drivers are better than long distance truck drivers.

Would you prefer that instead of stopping they hit something?
They don't use the exhaust brake to annoy people, they use the things
because they need to.

The fucking idiot who designed those signs has obviously never driven a
heavily loaded truck.

Pure fantasy.
Companies can choose any mode of transport they want, if rail was as you
describe "it can be at least as fast, if not faster, than road traffic"
then why don't they choose rail?
The company I deliver for receives interstate deliveries every day (Syd
-Melb) and the goods stay on the same trailers all the way, the
interstate drivers deliver the trailers to the depot then local drivers
and trucks deliver the goods into our warehouse, double handling is
very costly and the risk of damage to goods increases significantly.



Daryl

 

IMO a certain amount of blame for car drivers not understanding how to
behave around heavy vehicles can be put on those responsible for driver
training, many drivers don't seem to understand how much space a large
truck needs and some form of driver education would be very useful.
The transport industry could also help itself a lot if they put some
money towards car driver education.
BP has recently put some very large signs on the back of their tankers
warning drivers to not cut in front of trucks.



Daryl

 

Oh the irony. Just yesterday afternoon I was driving up James St,
Toowoomba, in the right lane (because I planned on turning right at
Mackenzie St ahead) doing about 60 (which is the speed limit), and a BP
tanker caught up with me and was tailgating very close. I wanted to turn
right ahead, so put my indicator on a little sooner than I normally
would to give the truck a bit of notice that I was going to be
slowing/stopping. About the same time, the light ahead went amber.
There was still enough distance I could have coasted to a stop if I
needed to, because it is uphill. Even if the light was green I would
have needed to stop anyway because of oncoming traffic. I backed a
little off the accelerator so I started slowing a little, and _touched_
the brakes (ie make the brake lights come on, without any braking
effect) to make it clear that I intended to stop. He showed absolutely
no sign of backing off and got even closer. There is no turn-right lane
at these lights, and it was clear this idiot wasn't going to stop behind
me, and by now I was running out of road. So I abandoned my right turn,
and changed into the left lane (in front of another car) and stopped at
the lights. I then watched the truck proceed through the now red light,
with the smoke coming out of his exhaust indicating he was powering
hard. Remember, this was uphill, with plenty of distance to the lights
at the time they turned amber. I can only assume the driver didn't want
to have to stop at the lights and hence get moving again. The red-light
camera at that intersection did flash, so hopefully he'll get a nice
fine in the mail for his impatience.
I agree cutting in front of trucks is bad, but when they tailgate that
is a different matter entirely. He caught up with me, I didn't cut in
front of him. He was following me at a distance that would have left him
no option but to go into me if I had to make a sudden stop. This is a
residential area, so the usual risks of unexpected things (cars, kids
etc) applies. I didn't notice one of these "don't cut in" signs on this
truck, but to be fair I wasn't really taking notice of what he had on
the back of his trailer.
BTW, certainly not the first time I have been tailgated on this street,
and definitely not the first time I have seen trucks run red lights
along here.

 

Did you get his rego number and call BP?
If not why?
I have to wonder why you seem to have so much trouble with trucks, when
I drive my ute or my wifes car I never have those sort of problems, I
wonder what you do to attract their attention?



Daryl

 

Implying?

---
Cheers

PeterC [aka MildThing]
Before an accident, most city drivers say "****!", whereas most country drivers
say "Hang on to this stubby, mate, while I show you some awesome driving"
'81 Yamaha Virago (XV) 750H (work in progress)
'01 Yamaha FJR1300

www.dmcsc.org.au
http://eladesom.com.au/ulysses/
# 37181

 

An all too common occurrence. Personally, I don't believe that a fully
loaded truck/semi has any business doing 60 kph on these streets. They
simply cannot pull up in time.

Having said that, however, any truck doing much less than that - and
trying to keep a buffer zone in front of them - pretty soon finds that
their buffer zone is filled by other traffic that sees a space and takes
it. To a certain extent, they then rely on their bigger bulk
intimidating other road users.

Coming back from Stanthorpe way, last week, I ended up putting the
Landcruiser off the road shoulder to avoid an oncoming truckie who
decided that he just HAD to overtake the car in front of him. There was
no way in hell he was going to be able to do that with the space between
he and I, but that didn't stop him. That was a Wickham's Transport
truck.

Later on, the same stretch of road between Stanthorpe and Warwick, the
B-Double fuel tanker that I was following must've had the same urge -
except this time HE was faced with an oncoming truck. He didn't even
think about pulling back - just kept powering on. The Muzzo in front of
him (traveling in the same direction as the fuel truck and I, very
quickly opted for the table drain off the road. The B-Double swung back
into his lane just in time.

That lack of patience isn't confined to truckies, however. The same day,
arriving in Toowoomba, I had a car pull out of a side street in front of
me, causing me to brake hard, and she then propped and did a right turn
in front of oncoming traffic - causing THEM to brake VERY hard.

In all three cases, there was a very strong reliance on trusting that
some other person would back down.

'Taint a truckie problem - 'tis a people problem. And people will take
advantage of whatever advantage their mode of transport gives them.
Cyclists will hop between footpath and road; truckies will use their
size as bullying behaviour; motorcyclists will used small size and quick
acceleration to lane-split or squirt overtake between opposing lanes;
car drivers will use the relative anonymity of their enclosed cage (plus
degree of protection from impact) to occupy that space that is currently
occupied by a 'lesser' more vulnerable road user.


---
Cheers

PeterC [aka MildThing]
Before an accident, most city drivers say "****!", whereas most country drivers
say "Hang on to this stubby, mate, while I show you some awesome driving"
'81 Yamaha Virago (XV) 750H (work in progress)
'01 Yamaha FJR1300

www.dmcsc.org.au
http://eladesom.com.au/ulysses/
# 37181