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TRUCKER'S STORY * Australia - The original modern trucker
* Victoria - Changing the faces of the trucking industry
-- Sam Dowler, a 28-year-old truck driver from Victoria, considers himself a young bloke in an aging industry... "A few mates told me to create a Facebook page to give the industry a bit of a laugh." That page is The Modern Day Trucker looking for a break to Hollywood... But the larrikin truckie also has a serious side and not only wants to give others a laugh but educate young drivers along the way. "I think one of the biggest concerns facing the industry is the health of drivers, mentally and physically," he said... While Sam may be considered a young truckie, he's got experience... "When I was 19 I left the family business and started off driving tour buses around Alice Springs but I soon decided I needed more than seven gears after passing all the massive road trains out there" ... After an 18-month stint in the Alice, Sam returned home to Dergholm in western Victoria... "A farming friend of mine from Kaniva was looking for a driver to operate a semi tipper over grain harvest, so that was my first truck driving job," he said... "I got my MC when I was 22 and having been in the right place at the right time I walked straight into a job transporting carrots... "In 2011 I took a chance and moved to Kalgoorlie in WA and got a job with an earthmoving and transport company driving a quad road train, 53.5m long, grossing at 180 tonnes, on a mine site hauling gold ore...
... Coming back to Victoria, Sam returned to Rocky Lamattina and Sons carrot growers. He now drives a Kenworth 108 with a C15 acert engine, taking the carrots from a farm at Kaniva to the processing factory at Wemen on the Murray River... Sam's got some good and bad memories from life on the road and, like most truckies, some have shaped his view of the industry and made him more determined to change its persona... Sam has fond memories of his time in the desert, hauling from Warburton to Kalgoorlie, about a 900km trip, 500km of it dirt... "Tony and I would've changed four tyres on four different cars - it must have been shopping day - and we even towed one back into a community as it was out of fuel and they had no water" ... But despite working in many states Sam said each had their differences and similarities but everyone said "ay" and "old mate"...
(Photos by Sam Dowler) -- Dergholm, VIC, Australia - Big Rigs, by Candyce Braithwaite - 24th Jul 2015
Labels: trucker stories
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