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Confessions of a truck driver * AUSTRALIA - Veteran truck driver Dennis Luke explains why he had to leave the world he once loved
The reason I finally quit the job I loved - driving big trucks - was that I didn't want to kill someone. I realised that times have changed and the dangers were too great.
Melbourne,Aistralia - The Sunday Herald Sun, by Dennis Luke -November 16, 2008: -- ... I wanted to drive trucks since I was a kid. I guess it was in my blood... Every weekend, the family would take a trip around Melbourne on public transport and I became fascinated by all the small and large vehicles we travelled on... That's when I decided to be a driver... They were heady days. I loved the weekends and I couldn't wait to one day be driving a big truck. It was my big dream... My father was a bus driver for 35 years and he showed me some of the tricks of the road to keep me safe... Now I've been driving for 35 years myself and I've learned quite a lot more about the dangers on our roads... You have to have all your wits about you when you have 45 tonnes of big truck in your control... The reason I finally quit the job I loved - driving big trucks - was that I didn't want to kill someone. I realised that times have changed and the dangers were too great... I know that it's all about speed and momentum. The uphill sections create their own problems... The safety issues really hit home the other day when I was travelling on the Tullamarine Freeway... I had passed Bulla Rd and was travelling at 80km/h because of the volume of traffic, even though the speed limit was 100km/h... I had 80m in front of me clear, so if there was a tricky situation I had plenty of room to stop safely... But instead of one or two cars pulling in front of me, which still would have given me enough room to stop if needed, six vehicles pulled in front of me at the same time, within about two seconds... That didn't leave me much time or room to react... The last two cars came within 10m of me and one missed me by centimetres. The driver realised at the last moment that I was there. I had to swerve to the right into the other lane to avoid a crash... Not that I received any thanks. During the next couple of minutes the last two drivers continued to harass and blame me for just being there... Some people have funny notions about trucks. They reckon life would be better for them if we were taken off the roads by 5am every day... So take it easy on the roads next time you venture out. And remember that truckies are only doing their jobs... We all have a duty of care for each other - and that means we have to concentrate on the roads...
Labels: truckers' stories
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