Why one truck driver every week has been killed in a tragic year of carnage on Australia’s roads

Deadly schedules and poor training are behind the road crash carnage which has killed a record number of Aussie truckies this year, warns one veteran driver.

Altogether, 213 people, including 49 truck drivers, have died in truck-related crashes on Australian highways in 2023, up from a total of 178 deaths in 2022. 

The numbers reveal one truckie a week has been killed on Australia’s treacherous roads on average this year, including five in the past two weeks alone.

A teenage truck driver, aged just 19, was killed in a freak triple truck crash on the Sturt Highway in Murrumbidgee in southern NSW on November 22. 

Another truck driver in the smash was catapulted out of his cab and suffered serious life-changing head and spinal injuries, while a third was airlifted to hospital.

Earlier that day, another truckie was killed when his vehicle rolled over him as he tried to fix it by the roadside in Wingfield, South Australia.

Just a day later, the driver of a giant B-double truck also died when his rig ran off the road on the Newell Highway in the NSW Riverina region.

Passers-by raised the alarm after his truck was spotted wedged among the trees by the side of the highway, but emergency services found the driver dead at the scene.

And on Monday, a 40-year-old truck driver died when his truck careered off the Bruce Highway and rolled over at Clairview, 120km south of Mackay, Queensland.

A 48-yearold truckie was killed in yet another crash on Friday night when two trucks collided head-on 40 km south of Griffith in southern NSW 

Now seasoned truckie John Waltis – who has more than 6million kilometres under his belt in a career stretching back 50-plus years – has blamed the carnage on poor training, high pressure schedules and paper-thin margins for drivers.

‘Every time people hear of an accident, you think about who it is,’ he said. 

‘Everybody worries about it. People say they don’t… but it’s got to be in the back of their mind because there’s far too many of them.

‘I’ve been to more funerals than I’d like. It’s really tough going to a mate’s funeral, not once or twice but 50-plus times.

‘Many of those funerals might have been prevented if drivers weren’t under so much pressure.’

‘I’VE BEEN UP FOR 24 HOURS’

He’s haunted by the loss of his mates over the years who were driven to take risks by haulage bosses desperate to meet their schedules, he says.

Mr Waltis said he lost one mate in a horror crash in 2021 when he claims the driver was ordered to drive for almost 24 hours or the company would lose a key contract.

‘He was given one load in Sydney and drove down to Griffith [in southern NSW] and was then told to pick up another load and bring it back to Sydney,’ said Mr Waltis.

‘He kept on saying to them, ‘Mate, I have to pull over, I’ve been up for 24 hours.’

‘He ran off the road and hit a tree. He was in a B-double and the back trailer landed on the prime mover which burst into flames.

‘Personally I hope he was dead before he hit the tree. It burst into flames and the body just burned.’

He said his late wife, Gabrielle, lived in terror of him one day never coming home himself.

She feared her husband was dead after she saw pictures of a truck crash just north of Sydney involving a vehicle from the company he worked for at the time.

‘She rang me and said, ‘Thank God you’re not dead’ and then called me ‘a mongrel’ for not ringing her the minute I knew an accident had happened,’ he said.

‘I said, ‘What accident?’ I was going the other way, south, not north towards Newcastle. I knew nothing about it, but it was something that always lived with her.

‘The dead driver was a bloke who normally only did local work but drove up to Warnervale [on the Central Coast] every now and again to unload at the Woolworths up there.

‘He had a six-month-old baby girl but was so excited to be going up there because he hadn’t been for a few months.

‘But he didn’t even make it past the hill when you first join the M1 freeway at Ku-ring-gai. It was heavy rain and he just drove off the road and died. It was pretty sad.’

He added: ‘I got married in 1971 and worked seven days a week, 20 hours a day, loading and driving trucks.

‘I did that for 10 years and then said no more. I’m going to end up a fatality and I’m not going to – so I vowed to do legal hours only.

‘I don’t want to put myself or anybody in the general public at risk. So I did say no…but a lot of people just won’t. 

‘They think they’re still living in the 60s when you used to work 24 hours a day.’

REGULARLY DRIVING UP TO 14 HOURS A DAY 

Some truckies may use illegal drugs like methamphetamine to help keep them awake and focused on epic long journeys, he admitted, although bigger companies have mandatory drug tests and will sack anyone who fails or refuses to take a test.

But most crashes are caused by either a lack of experience and training, or drivers just pushing themselves too far in a desperate bid to earn a wage, he said.

‘There’s more pressure being put on companies to do more work for less,’ he said. 

Even standard shifts will see regular drivers like Mr Waltis – who earns around $150,000 a year – driving for up to 14 hours every second day to meet demand.

Haulage contractors pay between 51c and 63c/km to staff drivers which can encourage some to drive themselves to their limit every shift, he said.

Subcontractors working for haulage contractors are often paid by the pallet, earning around $800 for shipping 40 pallets down to Melbourne.

‘But that works out about $1/km,’ said Mr Waltis, 70.  ‘And with fuel costing around $2 a litre, and big rigs using about 1.2litres per tonne/km, you’re paying to go to work.’

The problem is made even worse by a lack of proper training for many drivers he said.

MAYBE THEY SHOULD STILL BE ON PUSHBIKES

He stressed that some firms, like industry giant Linfox, lead the way in training drivers and driver care, but others often employ truckies without the skills to survive.

‘I hate seeing young people that are able to get a licence to drive these things without being competent,’ he said.

‘They’re not competent to drive the thing. They think they are – but you can’t teach people humility. They have teenagers being six foot tall and bulletproof. 

‘But they’re not. The training is vitally important.

‘There has always been deaths out here but it seems to be getting worse in the last 15 years,’ he added.

‘And it’s worse right now because of all the inexperienced people we’ve got out here, because they’re being put on and they haven’t been trained.’

He believes too many drivers are getting behind the wheel of big rigs without the skills to cope beyond driving forward in a straight line.

‘Maybe they should still be on a pushbike,’ he said. 

‘You’ve got to make sure to do due diligence and make sure people can do the job they’re employed for.

‘I feel sorry for all the young blokes coming into the industry because most of them, they just don’t know what they’ve let themselves in for.’

The grandfather-of-four said one of his two sons once said he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a truck driver too.

‘I said, “I’ll break your legs” because it’s not a life for everybody,’ said Mr Waltis. ‘It’s for a select few, but they’ve made it too easy to get a [truck] driver’s licence.’

UNION’S PLEA FOR REFORM 

Mr Waltis’s pleas have been echoed by the Transport Workers’ Union which has demanded Parliament urgently pass new legislation to tackle the problem.

The proposed laws would close a loophole allowing companies to negotiate a rate of pay with workers then bring in labour hire and pay them less.

Business groups and the opposition argue it will add undue costs to businesses and make operations less flexible.

TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine said the horror week shows how urgent it is for Federal Parliament to pass life-saving transport reform.

The union mounted huge trucker protests in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, as well as a convoy from Sydney to Canberra last weekend.

The convoy included transport employees, owner drivers and gig workers, transport associations ARTIO, NatRoad, and NRFA, and transport operators including Global Express, Toll, Linfox, Bevchain, ACFS and FBT Transwest. 

‘Transport workers are being slaughtered on the roads,’ said Mr Kaine. ‘The industry is in mourning. 

‘The entire industry is backing legislation to set enforceable minimum standards in transport.

‘The sooner this reform is passed, the sooner the industry will have the mandate to begin work putting fairer, safer and more sustainable standards in place.’

He added: ‘Transport businesses are also collapsing at rising rates. 

‘In the three months from August to October, 166 transport insolvencies were reported – a 44 percent increase on the same period last year. 

‘The industry is in freefall. It needs the safety net of standards.’