Southern Cross Party Ltd

Driving Hours

The current driving hours, and driving hours variations are adequate in their present form, they allow enough flexibility to carry out most tasks associated with livestock and general transport and remain within the law, I believe that safety is not compromised under the present systems.

An extension of driving hours will bring about a new set of problems; mainly an expectation by fleet’s owners for their drivers to work longer and harder, freight forwarders will pressure owner drivers and sub-contractors to work maximum hours without regard for the health or welfare of the operators.
A reduction of the present driving hours will destroy the viability of most small fleet and owner driver operations, these businesses rely on high equipment utilization to meet running cost, profitability is calculated on twelve to fourteen hour days six days a week, because margins are so small a reduction in driving hours will mean bankruptcy.

License Demerit Points

Demerit points for driving offences are not going to improve safety as the wrong people will be paying the price, nit picking enforcement officers both in the Police service and Qld transport are already responsible for seeing off some very experienced operators who have left the industry to preserve their licenses.

Some officers are going through log books looking for enough errors or breaches in order to take the license in one stop, it’s almost like a game to some of these people, thankfully they are in the minority but no consolation if you run into one of them.

Demerit Points for log-book offences attacks the licenses of professional drivers and threatens their livelihood, a loss of license will further reduce the number of experienced operators in the industry, we will see foreign drivers being sought to fill the shortfall, recruiting foreign drivers is happening at the moment by big companies who are already suffering driver shortages, hardly a good outcome for Aussie drivers or safety as most of these people will not be familiar with our rules and regulations and possibly do not speak English, and they will probably be exploited for profit.

Fines
The doubling of fines was more than sufficient to deter driving hour’s offences without the demerit points as well, as mentioned earlier margins are very small in this industry, so much so that a blown tyre can be enough to make the job a loss, doubling the fine as has happened has the same effect, so the monetary loss is now a adequate deterrent.

We understand that some companies pay their drivers fines and continue to break the law, we don’t think there is any justice in penalizing the owner driver or small sub-contractors by lumping us all in together we don’t have the benefit of someone else paying our fines, we cannot compete against companies that operate outside the law, and expect the drivers to take the demerit points for driving offences made on their behalf, while they sit in an office and remain untouchable.

A one size fits all regulation can not work in this situation, we believe that another method of enforcement should be looked at that will make the business owner/manager responsible for the drivers actions.

I would suggest that authorities fine the driver as per the regulation then fine the company with two to ten trucks five times the drivers fine, companies with ten or more trucks will pay ten times the drivers fine, in that case any job they are breached on will run at a loss, no company can sustain fines of that magnitude for very long, then the need for demerit points will not apply.

Enforcement

Interpretation of the new regulations by enforcement officers has been a bone of contention with many operators, breaches are written for non safety offences and the increased fines and demerit points applied, to contest these in court could involve additional expense if the case is lost, a higher fine and court costs make it impossible to even consider a challenge to the breach, so we cop it on the chin pay up and shut up.

Conclusion

Truck drivers have very few rights, when you think about it, compared to other professions we lack any say in what is best for us, we don’t call the shots at all, we cop endless attacks from all sectors of community, when all we are trying to do is make an honest living; we are not hell bent on killing ourselves or anyone else, at the moment there is no equity in transport and it is not hard to see why the old fellers are leaving it behind and the younger generation are not rushing to be a part of an under paid, over regulated and over taxed industry.

Without road transport this country will stumble and fall, without forward thinking now it will be too late to rebuild, what we should be doing is strengthening our support for future growth by providing better road infrastructure, more consistent national regulation, inject the fuel excise tax fully into road funding, build freight corridors and terminals that will allow multi-combination units into every state, fund heavy vehicle driver training, and develop alternative fuel sources, as the freight task will double in the next ten years we need to plan now.