Goodaye all, welcome to 2023 and I hope it serves you well. Will be short this week, yes home yesterday after being very concerned where the next southbound overtaking lane is being built in the Pilliga and have emailed Transport for NSW (again) seeking answers.
The failures in the roads seem to be patched at times and at others, completely ignored and left to try and kill us! The Newell is a major highway, yet it does and has not for years, received the funding of others. Yes that has changed and it is having work done, but is the quality there? Are we getting value for the money spent, not from where I sit and bounce and bang up and down the road.
Into Melbourne last week and all the drivers in the rear bump trucks sitting there in the Tulla tunnel for hours on their phones without a worker in site, good value there obviously. Looking forward to seeing who will be on the rest area steering committee, should be announced this month for the first meeting in February. Thanks to those who have offered comments and suggestions to me directly and will try and include them, but there will and must be, wide consultation with drivers to not only show I or someone else did not pick a site they want fixed alone.
There must also be work done outside of simply more rest areas. One mate had a go at me some time ago, saying the caravanners all loved me, because every time I got a new or improved truck bay, they got somewhere new to park. Another fellow believes the signage for trucks is not clear enough, what is a truck and is a truck bay for trucks only, or simply saying trucks can fit.
Why is it that all car bays, mostly with no truck signs, have all the toilets tables and chairs and shade? If that, then why can’t we at the very least have parking to be able to walk in and use them. We must have a National Truck Rest area Strategy, where no section of road over 25 which has major work, can’t be dome without consultation for truck rest areas. No single truck rest area to be closed, removed or reduced, without same and replacement spaces. Better use of stockpile sites, industrial areas etc. I have raised these issues in early discussions before the entry process was even decided, but it will be a group of associations and drivers and I look forwards to working with them all.
Off to Wagga to unload in the morning and hightail it into Melbourne to try and get loaded tomorrow afternoon. Safe Travelling till next week, cheers Rod.
TRUCKRIGHT 