A veteran Australian truck driver says he’s almost ready to retire after 35 years on the road due to the dangers posed by a flood of inexperienced foreign drivers.
Wayne Imlay, 62, spent 20 years as a truck driver in New Zealand before moving to Western Australia, and now drives road trains and pocket road trains carrying general freight and dangerous goods between Perth and Esperance, Geraldton and Kalgoorlie.
But he told Big Rigs that despite still loving the job, he’s “actually looking forward to hanging up the keys in a couple of years” because of the dangerous driving he now sees on a regular basis.
“Over the past five years in particular, the quality, standard and education of drivers – including many coming in from overseas, just isn’t there. I don’t know how some of these people are obtaining their truck licences, they’re inexperienced and it’s really dangerous,” Mr Imlay said, and expressed concerns over the recent revocation of hundreds of licences from Indian immigrants in New Zealand.
“In other countries, they don’t have these big road trains like we have here. Then people come to Australia and get into the big gear and off they go, without the proper training.
“I’m almost at a point where when I see things happening out on the road, it creates a lot of anxiety, makes you very nervy. I never used to get that feeling before but it’s happening a lot more now. Every truck driver wants to go home safely, that’s what it comes down to.”
Mr Imlay said behaviour like overtaking in dangerous spots and speeding means he feels unsafe on the Great Eastern Highway “where there’s all these guys coming over from the east”, and said he believes improper training is also to blame.
“If governments were serious about doing something back when driver shortages were first becoming an issue, they should have started proper driver training programs to help plug those gaps,” he said.
“Because it’s so hard to get drivers, I think there’s a mentality among some companies, that if you’ve got a licence, you’ll do.”
Mr Imlay’s comments come after major trucking company Ron Crouch Transport went into voluntary administration, with the owner hitting out at “sham contracting” – where companies hire truck drivers on individual ABNs, even though they don’t own and operate their own vehicle, in order to avoid paying employee entitlements.
Earlier this year trucking industry insiders warned immigrant drivers on overseas licenses were unfamiliar with Australian safety standards, ignoring road rules, taking unsafe detours to get around road closures, driving poorly maintained and uninsured vehicles, forging defect clearances, and using truck stops as depots.
Header image: Wayne Imlay (Big Rigs).
