Riverside Refridgerated Transport semi-trailer loses control at speed at night in the wet on the Great Western Highway in an 80kph zone

Then crashes into a Springwood home narrowly missing the occupants.

Last Monday 20130916 near midnight

.

This loaded semi-trailer was being driven by 43 year old truck driver from Cowra, where Riverside Refridgerated Transport is based.   It was near midnight and he was likely delivering refridgerated farm produce to Sydney markets.

Problem is that it was wet and along that section of the Great Western Highway through Springwood the speed limit is 80kph.  So the truck driver must have been either speeding or fell asleep at the wheel, or both.  The semi careered off the highway on the right bend and ploughed into a telegraph pole, cutting it in half under the force, then crashed into the side yard of 2 Boland Avenue, just metres from the house and its innocent occupants.

So much for carting Cowra’s best produce to market

Pay peanuts, cut corners…

.

The crash also ruptured a gas main, which caused a significant leak, causing all west bound lanes of the highway to be closed for one and a half hours.  Police also had to evacuate residents from another two nearby homes.

[Source:  ‘Driver, family escape close call’, 20130917,  Cowra Guardian newspaper, ^http://www.cowraguardian.com.au/story/1781566/driver-family-escape-close-call/]

.

What caused the crash?  The media is quick to report the crash as a newsworthy story, but rarely investigates the cause nor takes much interest in the repeated recurrence on our highways.

The government authority responsible for trucking operations and for road design and safety across New South Wales is the Roads and Maritime Services (the old RTA-com-RMS, just rebranded).   There is no crash barrier on this right bend of the Great Western Highway, yet this particular road section allows for all vehicles to travel at 80 kph.  It is just past a down hill run, so how many vehicles travelling east typically nudge 90 kph, including trucks?

The RTA-come-RMS doesn’t care.  Has it ever had speed monitoring at this location?  Road policy at the RTA-come-RMS is that crash barriers and upgrades to highway safety are not implemented unless there is a history of “crash data”.  Someone has to die before the RTA-come-RMS does anything.

Consider the nearby George Street intersection with the Great Western Highway just a kilometre east.  When the highway was widened gto four lanes and tranformed into a 80 kph trucking expressway, George Street access was without traffic lights.  Entry into the highway was Russian Roulette.   Around this four laned expressway section of the Great Western Highway between 2000 and 2010, as it travels through Springwood, some 137 crashes have been documented according to Blue Mountains Council records.  [Source:  ‘Springwood to Valley Heights Link Road -Traffic Modelling Report, 20120408, by GST Consultants p.5, – see report attached at end of this article].

Wider and faster is not safer!   More faster bigger trucks are not safer!

Midnight trucking is inherently deadly because late and night and the early hours of the morning only defies the human biological clock when humans naturally need sleep.  Graveyard shift work on the road through the night is killing truck drivers and fellow motorists sharing the highway.  Midnight trucking is a ticking time bomb.

Fatigue Management is a farce

…just don’t forget to spell towns properly in your log book.

.

Yet governments across Australia including the New South Wales government are encouraging this unnatural practice, by accommodating the trucking industry with bigger roads and transforming regional highways like the Great Western Highway into national trucking expressways.

And as they build bigger roads for bigger trucks, they destroy the environment and roadside communities.

Bullaburra disappearing

Photo by Editor in Blue Mountains, Australia, 20130630, photo © under  ^Creative Commons]

Click image to enlarge

.

Australian governments at national and state levels are changing laws to allow for larger and longer trucks  B-doubles and B-triples to do the overnight linehaul task best suited to trains.

B-triples (basically ‘road-trains’) have already been introduced on regional highways in South Australian, Queensland and Victoria

. 

Yet despite national legislation to try to address the systemic fatigue problem amongst linehaul truck drivers, goivernment agencies like the RTA-come-RMS provbide not fatigue managemnent infratructure along the entire length of the Great Western Higwhay between Penrith and Orange.

It’s a disgraceful “she’ll be right” mindset – just use the servos or park your rig on the highway shoulder outside local residents homes, like opposite the Caltex servo in Mount Victiria and leave  your refrigerator compressor on all night.

Midnight Refridgeration

…passing through a town near you

.

Five days previously in Adelaide, on Wednesday 20130911, at about 1:00 am a B-Double left Glen Osmond Drive in the suburb of Frewville and collected a parked van, stobie pole, water hydrant and gas meter, before coming to a rest in the front of the Singapore House restaurant at 203 Glen Osmond Road.

[Source:  ‘B-Double truck crash ends in restaurant’, 20130911, by Brett Williamson, ABC, ^http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/09/11/3846020.htm].

.

Last week, a speeding truck careered down a hill and overturned into a house at Cottage Point in northern Sydney.

[Source”:  ‘Truck crashes into cars, boats and house’, 20130904, Yahoo!7, ^http://au.news.yahoo.com/video/national/watch/18778570/truck-crashes-into-cars-boats-and-house/]

.

In February this year, a B-double ploughed into a residential house in Sydney.

[Source:  9RAW, 20130226, ^http://video.au.msn.com/watch/video/9raw-truck-crashes-into-sydney-home/x6ztgyn?cpkey=8b31708a-606a-4ae7-b648-e55d939f0796%257c%257c%257c%257c]

.

Sand Truck smashes into Adelaide house 2011

.

Not the first time for midnight trucking on four laned sections of the Great Western Highway

..and this is before you get to the deadly six-laned M4.

.

Still, the NSW Government remains manifestly committed to its 20th Century trucking mindset, ignoring big picture freight rail.  It has this week just announced it will spend $11.5 billion on a 33 km trucking motorway across Sydney.  That is nearly a third of the annual Gross Domestic Product of New South Wales.

Just as the F3 was widened from two lanes each way, the existing M4 is to be widened to four lanes each way.

[Source:  ‘Green light given for the 115 billion west connex motorway’, 20130919, by Andrew Clennell State Political Editor, The Daily Telegraph, ^http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/green-light-given-for-the-115-billion-west-connex-motorway/story-fni0cx12-1226722391732]

.

And then there’s the billion dollar trucking bypass of Mount Victoria on the cards.

Artist’s scary impression…more trucking expressways.

.

Further Reading:

.

[1]   ‘Springwood to Valley Heights Link Road – Traffic Modelling Report, 20120408, by GTA Consultants, ^http://bluemountainshaveyoursay.com.au/document/show/644

>Download document    (6MB, 193 pages, PDF)

.

 Blue Mountains communities are rightly frightened of these killer B-Double cowboys hurtling along the Great Western Highway

.

~ the more lanes, the faster they hurtle!

.

Last week:   B-Double fuel truck driver fell asleep at the wheel through Medlow Bath

This Ron Finemore’s driver fell asleep at the wheel of this dangerous B-Double fully laden with petrol, while hurtling through Medlow Bath.

[Source: Photo by Len Ashworth, Lithgow Mercury, 20130512,

^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/1500162/lucky-escape-for-truck-driver/?cs=12]

.

His job is currently advertised:  ^http://www.ronfinemoretransport.com.au/career-opportunities  [>Read More.pdf ]

.

May 2013:  B-Double Driver Falls Asleep

.

<<A fully-laden double fuel tanker overturned in a short, straight, three-laned section of the highway between Katoomba and Medlow Bath in the early hours of Sunday, May 12.

The giant rig owned by Orange-based Ron Finemores Transport was being driven west when it veered onto the road shoulder and overturned down an embankment, coming to rest with the twin tankers upside down.

An ambulance spokesman said the driver, a 34-year-old Millthorpe man, was able to free himself from his wrecked cabin and clambered back to the roadway where one of the first on the scene was an off-duty paramedic.   He was taken to Katoomba Hospital and treated for minor facial injuries.

Driver Fatigue is suspected as a possible cause of the smash.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Lucky escape for truck driver’, 20130515, by Len Ashworth, editor The Lithgow Mercury newspaper, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/1500162/lucky-escape-for-truck-driver/?cs=12]

.

[Ed: So are Finemore’s drivers paid by the hour or by completed trip – where the more trips and the faster they hurtle along, the cheaper it is for the trucking corporation?  Are there any unions left to represent truck drivers’ occupational health and safety on The Road as a Workplace?

.

On The Road as a Workplace, the New South Wales Government provides no truck rest stop along the entire length of the Great Western Highway between Orange and Sydney (255 km) in either direction to properly cater for heavy vehicle driver fatigue. 

.

The token parking bay at Faulconbridge westbound through the Blue Mountains is a substandard joke, with the only facilities being two rubbish bins.   The westbound shoulder at Mount Victoria opposite the Caltex Service Station for trucker cabin sleeping is a disgraceful defacto emergency stopover and only inflicts noise pollution to nearby locals 24/7. 

.

Overpaid NSW Transport urban bureaucrats Peter Duncan, Les Wielinga, Roads Minister Duncan Gay, and millionnaire magnate Ron Finemore need to do a few nights truck cabin kip there (this time of year) and then directly turn up for work the next day.  At the same time, these same NSW Government urban bureaucrats justify billions to widen the highway to four lanes to facilitate more corporate truck freight – as if an urban fatigue free route.

.

Ron Finemore Transport is one of the corporate trucking lobbyists pushing for more and bigger trucks along the Great Western Highway.  In 2012 the company opened a new $9 million facility in Orange along the highway to house its 120 B-Double truck drivers and fleet of 50 B-Doubles. 

.

Selfish trucking magnates like Finemore divert New South Wales Government from investing in freight rail services and infrastructure.  They perpetuate the dangerous B-Double Menace that is increasingly killing and maiming ordinary users of our regional highways and a deadly social problem avoided by governments around Australia.]

.

[Source:  ‘Finemore opens $9 million facility in regional NSW’, 20121012, ^http://ichainnel.com/en/news/361889_0ikxd5.html]

.

May 2013:  Truck kills a Woman in her Car

.

Different head-on collision, but similar consequence

[Source:  Photo by Richard Polden, Perth Now

^http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/motorist-trapped-after-car-truck-head-on-in-bullsbrook/story-e6frg13u-1226111010848]

.

<<A woman has died after a crash between a truck and car today (Thursday) at Luddenham in Sydney’s west, police say. Police and other emergency services attended the collision on The Northern Road, near Littlefields Rd, about 10am.  A brief will be prepared for the Coroner.

.

Meanwhile, a 44-year-old man has been injured after a multiple-vehicle crash in Sydney’s west this morning.  About 5:05am, two semi-trailers, A Toyota Hilux utility and a Ford sedan at the intersection of the Great Western Highway and Doonside Rd at Arndell Park.  Emergency services personnel took about 30 minutes to remove the utility driver from the vehicle.  He is being treated in Westmead Hospital for chest and arm injuries.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Woman dies in crash involving truck’, 20130515, Cowra Community News,  ^http://cowracommunitynews.com/viewnews.php?newsid=3650&id=4]

.

May 2013:  Truck Drivers do Hit and Run

.

<<A B-Double truck travelling in lane three on the M4 Motorway near St Clair (Sydney’s west) has changed lanes and moved into the path of a utility this morning (Sunday).

The B-Double struck the car and the car then flipped over and ended on its roof, killing the car driver.  The driver of the B-Double truck failed to stop and continued travelling west along the M4.

[Ed: … I own the road but I saw nuuthing!]

.

<<Meanwhile, a 32-year-old male pedestrian has suffered a serious leg fracture when he was struck by a truck in another hit-and-run near Newcastle last night (Saturday).

Police say the man was walking north in the breakdown lane of the Pacific Highway at Tomago, where three lanes merge into two, when he was hit by a truck at a point past the northern end of Hexham Bridge about 6:45pm.   The man was thrown on to the highway’s grass shoulder, while the truck did not stop!

The injured man managed to crawl back to the edge of the road and hail a passing motorist for help, police say.  He was treated at the scene and taken to Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital suffering a serious lower leg fracture.   The Newcastle Crash Investigation Unit is looking into the crash and making attempts to track down the truck involved.>>

[Ed: … I own the road but I saw nuuthing!]

.

May 2013:  B-Double hangs off Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge

.

B-Doubles Out of Control

.

<<The driver plunged from the cabin of his vehicle after a road crash left the truck’s cabin dangling off Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge just after 6.30am today (17th May, 2013).

There is traffic chaos on a Melbourne freeway where a truck has crashed and been left dangling precariously over the side.  The truck driver was taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital and is in a critical condition.  The driver of the other car was also taken to hospital in an unknown condition.

The incident has caused chaos on the Tullamarine Freeway, which is now closed to inbound traffic at Flemington Road.  City-bound traffic on the Tullamarine Freeway remains at a standstill.

The road will likely be closed until later today and transport authority VicRoads has advised motorists to avoid the heavily-congested area.  Crews will work to remove the truck, which is hanging halfway over the bridge, and assess damage to the road before it is reopened to motorists.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Man falls from truck dangling off bridge’, 20130517, by Sylvia Varnham O’Regan, Nine News (TV), ^http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/05/17/07/16/truck-hanging-from-bridge-after-freeway-crash]

.

May 2013:   Woman dies in crash involving truck

.

<<A woman has died after a crash between a truck and car today (Thursday) at Luddenham in Sydney’s west, police say.  Police and other emergency services attended the collision on The Northern Road, near Littlefields Rd, about 10am.   A brief will be prepared for the Coroner.

.

Meanwhile, a 44-year-old man has been injured after a multiple-vehicle crash in Sydney’s west this morning.

About 5:05am, two semi-trailers, A Toyota Hilux utility and a Ford sedan at the intersection of the Great Western Highway and Doonside Rd at Arndell Park.

Emergency services personnel took about 30 minutes to remove the utility driver from the vehicle.  He is being treated in Westmead Hospital for chest and arm injuries.  No one else was injured, police say.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Woman dies in crash involving truck’, 20130515, Cowra News, NSW, ^http://cowracommunitynews.com/viewnews.php?newsid=3650&id=4]

.

Dec 2010:   Ballina, NSW – a multiple vehicle crash caused by a truck over the centre line

[Source:  ^http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/trucks-crash-bangalow-road/712289/]

.

Apr 2013:  Truck catches Fire

.

<<A truck driver had a lucky escape after his semi-trailer caught fire in Victoria’s north.  The truck carrying carpet was travelling on the Hume Highway near Wallan when the blaze began at 2pm.   It is understood the driver fled the cabin of the truck as soon as he noticed the flames.

Up to 13 fire crews have been on scene battling the big blaze for hours.  Police will investigate the cause of the fire as soon as it has been brought under control.

.

[Source:  ‘Truck fire causes Hume Highway delays near Wallan’, 20130421, by Alex White, Herald Sun (Victoria), ^http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/truck-fire-causes-hume-highway-delays-near-wallan/story-e6frf7kx-1226625363194]

.

Apr 2013:  Plastics truck explodes on highway

.

Truck explodes on Hume Freeway near Berrima

.

<<A driver escaped injury after a truck loaded with plastics exploded on a highway south-west of Sydney early this morning.

A truck loaded with wheelie bins has been engulfed in fire on a highway south-west of Sydney.  The truck caught fire just (around midnight) today on the Hume Highway, south of Berrima.

A spokesperson for the NSW Rural Fire Service told ninemsn the trailer was filled with 800 domestic garbage bins.  Molten plastic spread across the southbound lanes of the highway.

It took six fire trucks to extinguish the blaze which caused “extensive” damage to the trailer.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Plastics truck explodes on highway’, 20130501, by Sophie Cousins, Nine News (TV), ^http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/05/01/08/17/plastics-truck-explodes-on-highway]

.

Apr 2013:  Young man killed in horror head-on with B-Double

.

Nothing Left

Pacific Highway near Ulmarra 

.

<<Police confirmed a man aged in his 20s died after the southbound Mazda 929 he was driving was involved in a head-on with a B-Double truck.  The crash happened 3km north of the town about 3.15am.

Witnesses told police after the initial impact the truck swerved off the highway, rolled onto its side into a paddock and burst into flames.  Firefighters who battled the blaze said the driver had a lucky escape.   Fire crews said they were met by an inferno when they arrived on scene with flames rising as high as 10 to 20 metres above the wreckage.

The accident happened on a notorious Pacific Highway section…>>

.

[Source:  ‘Young man killed in horror head-on with b-double’, 20130423, Coffs Coast Advocate newspaper, ^http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/news/horror-head-on-crash-kills-man/1841067/]

.

Apr 2013:   Speeding B-Double crashes and cattle killed, others shot

.

B-Double Cattle Truck crash kills livestock, injured cattle are shot

Photo by Moree Champion

 

<<There was yet another truck roll on the Garah/Mungindi Road.

Dozens of cattle have been killed in a B-Double accident in north-west NSW.  The truck rolled on a bend on the outskirts of Garah near Moree just after seven this morning.

Moree Plains Council ranger Jock Jones says locals are working together to save what cattle they can, and round up those that got away.

“We’ve used grinders to open the tray up. We’ve got a front end loader that’s pulling the truck apart,” he said.  “It’s a hideous job now. Pulling them out is very sad. I’ve had to shoot a lot but we are saving a lot.  “Most of them have got out and run off.”

There were about 60 cattle on board.  It’s thought the cattle had come from Longreach in Queensland.

The 46-year-old driver of the truck was thrown clear on impact.  He was treated by paramedics for facial injuries and cuts to his arms, back and legs. He was taken to Moree hospital in a stable condition.>>

.

Ed:  Previously on the same stretch of road:   ‘Sheep killed in truck rollover near Garah’, 22nd February 2010…<<Dozens of sheep died and others were put down after a B-Double truck rolled over near Garah yesterday (Sunday).>>

.

[Sources:  ‘Cattle euthanased after B-double crash’, 20130408, Northern Daily Leadernewspaper, ^http://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/1417892/cattle-euthanased-after-b-double-crash/, and ‘Truck crash kills dozens of cattle’, 20130408, by Lisa Herbert, ABC Rural, ^http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201304/s3732059.htm]

.

Mar 2013:  Two Escape Sydney Truck Fire

.

Truck Crash at the corner of Roger St and Old Pittwater Rd Brookvale, on Sydney’s Northern Beaches

[Photo by Cameron Mitch, The Sunday Telegraph]

.

<<Two people have escaped with minor injuries after the truck they were travelling in rolled over and caught on fire in Sydney’s north.   The semi-trailer truck, which was carrying sand, rolled over about 8am on Old Pittwater Road in Brookvale, Fire and Rescue NSW said on Saturday.

“Two people escaped from the truck’s cabin before it caught fire,” Superintendent Tom Cooper told AAP.  “The fire caused one of the truck’s 400 litre tanks of diesel to rupture and the diesel spilled into a storm water drain.”

.

[Source:  ‘Two escape north Sydney truck fire’, 20130309, by AAP, Daily Telegraph newspaper, ^http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/two-escape-north-sydney-truck-fire/story-e6freuy9-1226593712677]

 

.

Mar 2013:  Two killed after B-Double and car collide head-on

.

No chance at Ki Ki, South Australia
Picture: First On Scene Media Source: adelaidenow

.

<<..In a shocking start to the Easter holidays, two people, both aged 22, believed to be Asian nationals living in Adelaide, died after the rental car they were driving crossed to the wrong side of the road and slammed into a B-Double truck on the Dukes Highway near Ki Ki (South Australia), just before 3am.

..Royal Automobile Association public affairs general manager Penny Gale said this stretch of highway accounted for a third of all the state’s road fatalities.

..Major Crash Investigation Section officer-in-charge Detective Inspector Peter Duance said it was a “tragedy” and he warned of the dangers of fatigue when driving in the early hours of the morning.   “Sometimes, it’s a good idea to travel in the early hours because there is less traffic on the road but people need to remember to take appropriate rest breaks and share the driving if possible,” he said yesterday.

The deaths take the state’s road toll to 31 compared with 25 this time last year.

.

[Source:  ‘Two killed after B-double and car collide head-on along Dukes Highway’,  20130329, by David Nankervis, The Advertiser newspaper,  ^http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/two-killed-after-b-double-and-car-collide-head-on-along-dukes-highway/story-e6frea83-1226608881287]

.

Mar 2013:  B-Double carrying fertiliser rollover near Hummocks, SA

.

<<Nobody was injured when a B-Double carrying fertiliser rolled onto its side on the Copper Coast Highway last Tuesday, March 19.   Police were called to the accident about 2pm and put traffic restrictions in place which lasted until the scene was cleared six hours later.  The crash happened just south of the Hummocks.

.

[Source:  ‘Police News… B-double rollover near Hummocks’, 20130326, Yorke Peninsula Country Times, South Australia, ^http://www.ypct.com.au/index.php/news/91-news2/1705-police-news-b-double-rollover-near-hummocks]

.

Mar 2013:   “wobbling trailer” or Speed causes B-Double Rollover?

.

B-Double rollover on the Cunningham Hwy at Maryvale

.

<<The B-Double rollover on the Cunningham Hwy at Maryvale (north east of Warwick, south-eastern Queensland) on Saturday morning.   One lane of the Cunningham Hwy was blocked at Maryvale from 6am Saturday until mid-afternoon after a B-Double rolled over.   The truck was carrying general freight, including small motors and bags of grain.

A Warwick police spokesman said it was believed the rear trailer started to wobble which resulted in the whole vehicle turning over on one lane of the highway…Police said there was extensive damage to the prime mover.

There was also a single vehicle rollover at Pyramid’s Rd, Stanthorpe, at 12.45pm Saturday.  No one was injured.

.

[Source:  ‘B-double Rollover causes highway traffic delays’, 20130318, ^http://www.warwickdailynews.com.au/news/b-double-rollover-causes-highway-traffic-delays/1795182/]

.

Feb 2013: Truck fire in Sydney Harbour Tunnel

.

<<Motorists are experiencing extensive peak hour delays following a truck fire in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. The fire started in the truck’s battery compartment, but the cause is still to be determined.

Traffic is banked up at both ends of the tunnel after a freightliner in the southbound lane caught on fire just after 4pm on Wednesday, activating a fire alarm and causing the closure of the tunnel.

A Transport Management Centre spokeswoman says motorists in the area are being diverted onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but there are extensive delays for northbound and southbound traffic.  Emergency services are on site, and there is no forecast for when the tunnel will reopen.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Truck fire closes Sydney Harbour Tunnel’, 20130220, by AAP, ^http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/truck-fire-closes-sydney-harbour-tunnel/story-e6frfku9-1226582150849]

.

Oct 2012:  Multiple truck crash on Sydney’s M4

.

A crash on the M4 freeway closed both lanes of traffic

[Source:  Picture by Gregg Porteous, The Daily Telegraph]

.

<<A multi-vehicle pile up on the M4 has closed the motorway in both directions.  At least five vehicles, including two trucks collided near the intersection with Silverwater Rd about 1.15pm.  …The accident left one ute on its roof, while two trucks hit the concrete median barrier pushing sections into the path of oncoming traffic.

Meanwhile, Sydney’s traffic woes have worsened with a broken down truck closing down the westbound tunnel of the M5 East.  The tunnel was shut shortly after 2pm, with tow trucks enroute to clear the vehicle.   But to make matters worse the usual detour route around the tunnel is also shut in both directions after a truck brought down powerlines on Stoney Creek Rd near the intersection of Mimosa St, Bexley.

.

[Source:  ‘Major accident on M4 near Silverwater Road causes traffic delays’, 20121011, by Henry Budd, The Daily Telegraph newspaper, ^http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/major-accident-on-m4-near-silverwater-road-causes-traffic-delays/story-fnb5f12x-1226493579913]

.

April 2012:   Truck on Fire on Hume Highway

.

Truck on Fire on Hume Highway, near Yerrinbool
Photo by Petrina Price

.

<<There are major delays for motorists on the Hume Hwy near Yerrinbool after a truck burst into flames this morning… just after 9.40am near Remembrance Drive.One of two southbound lanes is closed and traffic is queued for about 4.5km.  Motorists are advised to avoid the area if possible.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Yerrinbool: Hume Hwy delays after truck fire’, 20120412, Illawarra Mercury newspaper, ^http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/112596/yerrinbool-hume-hwy-delays-after-truck-fire/]

.

Dec 2011:   Rollover of B-Double carting wool

.

B-Double Rolled on Ballimore Highway near Dubbo

.

<<There was a B-Double truck rollover east of Ballimore on the Golden Highway. The truck was carrying a full load of wool.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Ballimore B-Double rollover’, 20111210, Win News, ^http://www.orana.rfs.nsw.gov.au/file_system/attachments/Orana/Attachment_20111210_6B7E3C94.wmv]

 

 

Sep 2010:  Truck collision closes Hume Highway 

.

Fire erupted in the trailers of the two trucks after they crashed on the Hume Highway near Yass

[Photo by ABC News]

.

<<Northbound lanes of the Hume Highway north of Canberra remain closed after a fiery crash between two trucks.  Fire erupted in the trailers of the vehicles after they collided about 10 kilometres from Yass just after 4:00am.

One of the truck drivers aged in his 50s suffered minor injuries and was taken to hospital.  Firefighters had difficulty extinguishing a blaze in the paper cargo of one of the trucks.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Truck collision closes Hume Highway’, 20100924, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/24/3020651.htm?site=canberra]

.

Mar 2009:   B-Double drags pedestrian 100 metres in hit-run

.

Police gather evidence after a pedestrian was killed in a hit-run in Reservoir (Melbourne)

.

<<Police say a female pedestrian was dragged 100 metres down the road in a fatal hit-and-run at Reservoir, in Melbourne’s north.

Police are questioning a 45-year-old man about the woman’s death, at the intersection of High Street and Broadhurst Avenue, about 10:30pm yesterday.  The man was arrested at Epping early this morning.

Police say the B-Double prime mover and trailer stopped briefly after the collision, then took off.  Sergeant Brendan Butland says the woman died at the scene.

“What’s occurred is tragic,” he said.  “A lady was obviously standing on the street corner when the truck’s turned left. She’s been struck by the truck and has been dragged a hundred metres or so down the road, and it’s just tragic.”

The B-Double is now under police guard.>>

.

[Source:  ‘B-double drags pedestrian 100 metres in hit-run’, 20090311, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-03-11/b-double-drags-pedestrian-100-metres-in-hit-run/1614926]

.

.

Further Reading:

.

[1]    >Great Western Highway set to be a Trucking F3

.

[2]  >Threats from Roadmaking – Articles

.

---

.

Footnote

.

McColl’s Milk Tanker slams at speed into a Parramatta Road cafe on the corner of Croydon Road, Croydon

.

We didn’t have to wait long.  Close to midnight last night, an out-of-control fully-laden milk tanker heading into Sydney along Parramatta Road, crossed over the centre concrete medium stip and slammed into a cafe, where residents were sleeping above.  The prime mover then caught fire as it was wedged inside the cafe.

Milk Truck approach on eastbound side of Parramatta Road toward the Croydon Road intersection.   Looking east along Parramatta Road toward the Croydon Road cafe (circled)

.

More lanes and more trucks are making our highways more dangerous.

[Image construct via Google Maps, before the crash]

.

The driver was probably on a linehaul service from Central West New South Wales delivering a milk load to Parmalat’s manufacturing plant at Lidcombe.  The driver died on impact. Did he fall asleep like the Finemore’s driver driving through Medlow Bath around midnight on Sunday 12 May?  (see lead post above).

It is yet another serious truck crash along the Great Western Highway corridor involving a trucking company based in Orange.  In this case, McColl’s Milk Transport operates out of Orange at 8 Barret Street.

Did the 63 year old driver have a heart attack or stroke?  How fit are these truck drivers?  How often are they medically tested to operate such killing machines on our highways?

The RTA-come-RMS lets anyone get a truck licence these days.  It Heavy Vehicle Competency Based Assessment programme is a joke.

The out of control truck hurtling on the wrong side of a six-laned Parramatta Road could have caused a head-on collision and killed many others, including the owners of the cafe.  As it was, the main Sydney arterial Parramatta Road was closed in both directions for hours causing major delays during the busy Friday morning peak.

A year ago, a McColl’s B-Double milk truck collided with a Countrylink bus along on the Gwyder Highway halfway between Grafton and Glen Innes.   It was about 3:30 pm, also on a Friday, on 10th February 2012.   The Countrylink bus driver was killed and his passengers received minor injuries..

B-Double McColl’s milk truck over the double lines kills Countrylink bus driver on the Gwyder Highway in February 2012.

[Source:  Photo by Debrah Novak, The Daily Examiner, from article ‘Fatal crash on Gwydir’, 20120210, Coffs Coast Advocate, ^http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/news/fatal-bus-and-truck-accident/1267856/]

 

These B-Doubles are too big and too dangerous

.

[Sources:  ‘Man dies in Croydon milk truck crash’, 20130524, ^http://www.skynews.com.au/national/article.aspx?id=874647]; and ‘Fatal crash on Gwydir’, 20120210, Coffs Coast Advocate, ^http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/news/fatal-bus-and-truck-accident/1267856/]

.

.

The Trucking Menace is out of control!

.

Yet another Dangerous Trucking Menace along the Great Western Highway – last week

[Source:  ‘Firies save “catastrophic” incident after truck catches fire at Faulconbridge’, 20130222, Blue Mountains Gazette, Photo: Top Notch Video

^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/1320007/firies-save-catastrophic-incident-after-truck-catches-fire-at-faulconbrige/]

.

The Dangerous Trucking Menace is becoming increasingly prevalent across the Blue Mountains on both the Great Western Highway and the Bells Line of Road.

This is because the ‘Roads and Traffic Authority‘ – rebranded but culturally unchanged to the ‘Transport Roads and Maritime Services‘ is tasked to re-engineer the Great Western Highway, a regional and local road, to facilitate more trucks.

The trucking mandate is to transform the highway into an expressway designed for bigger and faster trucks, just like the F3 Motorway between outer Sydney and the regional city of Newcastle, as infamously deadly that the F3 is.

The trucking mandate is national and driven by an Australia-wide freight transport policy which prioritises 95% road and 5% rail.  The truck-centric policy is steered by self-interested influential trucking magnates and their industry, whose driving catch-phrase is ‘time is money‘ and so any community along the highway that slows their trucks down must be dealt with.     They fund political economic rationalism which prefers to outsource and privatise instead of responsibly investing in national rail freight infrastructure.

Highway communities are treated as second class citizens.   Residents like the many thousands across the Blue Mountains are increasing exposed to the Dangerous Trucking Menace, when sharing the highway and from their homes:

• Bigger trucks and more B-Doubles
• Speeding trucks
• Tailgating trucks
• Trucks over the centre double lines
• Truck drivers frequently seen talking on a mobile phone while driving
• Exhaust brakes used at all hours through towns and villages
• Collisions and deaths
• Overturned trucks
• Broken down trucks
• Trucks on fire
• Truck tankers with gas, fuel or hazardous chemical leaks
• Selfish truckies sleeping outside residents at all hours with refrigerator motors running at Mt Victoria
• Same selfish truckies found urinating and defecating in residents’ front verges at Mt Victoria.

.

[Ed:  And truckies and their supporting wives wonder why truckies have a bad reputation and often cop blame?  Trucking is not a profession.  It is a uncontrolled cowboy skill-easy job earning pittance, attracting imbeciles and causing reckless maiming and death. This Editor has continued to hold an ‘HC’ licence from 1989, but income-wise has long since moved on.]

.

Source:  Blackheath Highway Action Group

‘The Blackheath Highway Action group was formed in 2008 to fight a proposal to turn the Great Western Highway

into a 4 lane high productivity freight vehicle (25/26/30m B-doubles) route across the Blue Mountains.

Website: ^http://www.bag.asn.au

.

Hardly a week passes without some report of a truck-related incident along the Great Western Highway and especially along the Hume Freeway, F3 Motorway and Pacific Highway, and that is just in New South Wales.  One local resident of the Blue Mountains, a Marcus Padley, terms these ‘Mack Truck Moments‘.  If only it were funny.  Last month Sarina Heta in her Kia Rio sedan wasn’t laughing when she was violently crushed between two B-doubles on the Great Western highway at Blackheath.

Australia has no central register of truck incidents, but if it did one wagers that the occurrence would be a daily one.  This is unacceptable yet the trucking menace is encouraged and poorly controlled or policed.

Currently, the Great Western Highway is being widened to four lanes at Hazelbrook at great expense and considerable delay due to poor due diligence and mismanagement.  In the re-engineered design, all interests of trucks are priorities by the road engineers, while local residents have little or no say.  As each stage of widening transformation takes place, successive affected communities become disheartened and confronted by the bulldozing of the regional highway and its replacement with a much wider trucking expressway.

Lawson has been completely obliterated and its character ‘lobotomised‘ as a town.

.

Lawson

before the Trucking Expressway bulldozers

.

Neo-Lawson

Shops bulldozed

Village Character urban lobotomised

.

Soon it will be neighbouring Bullaburra’s turn and highway properties are already up for sale.

Bullaburra:   On Trucking Death Row

.

The Bells Line of Road across the Blue Mountains is also having its side shoulders widened to accommodate B-double trucks 24/7 and is involving the destruction of native vegetation for kilometres.  Stage 1 is around the agricultural village of Bilpin.

Many sand and gravel B-Double style trucks use the Bells Line of Road between quarries and Sydney.  They are paid a trip rate and so travel at excessive speed to maximise trips per day.  The road has no speed cameras and is rarely patrolled by police.  It has become an infamous trucking cowboy route.  In June 2012, a sand loaded semi-trailer collided with two cars near Mt Tomah.  The truck was probably over the centre double lines like they usually are.

Semi-trailer cowboy carrying sand and speeding, 4km west of Mount Tomah, June 2012

It rolled, spilling its load across the Bells Line of Road

[Source:  ^http://www.cowracommunitynews.com/viewnews.php?newsid=834&id=3]

 

In May 2011, a gravel truck overturned on the Bells Line of Road while exceeding the speed limit.  The road is a renowned trucking menace and car drivers and motorbike riders use it at their own risk.   In July 2009, a motorcyclist has been killed on the Bells Line of Road 10 kilometres west of the Mount Tomah.  It must have surely been a ‘Mack Truck Moment‘.

 

B-Double Rollover on the Bells Line of Road (Nov 2010)

“West Sector Brigades are frequently called to accidents on the Bells Line of Road and Darling Causeway”.

[Source: Rural Fire Service, ^http://www.bluemountains.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=129643]

.

The government’s Trucking Expressway Mandate is to keep widening the Great Western Highway out to mainly four lanes between outer Sydney where the 6-lane M4 Motorway currently links to, and all the way out to Orange and beyond.  The long-term trucking strategy to eventually encourage 24/7 trucking of B-doubles between Sydney and Perth and Darwin.  In western Victoria even B-triples have been introduced, which are basically Road Trains – give the trucking lobby time.

B-doubles have to date been prohibited from the Great Western Highway due to its narrow unsuitable design and to respect the fact that it passes through nearly two dozen regional town and villages.    But that is constantly being challenged and undermined by hard-nosed government policy.

The dangerous misguided premise by the policy and by road engineers is that a wider a faster trucking expressway will be safer than the existing highway, yet the evidence refutes that.  All one needs to do is consider the repeated statistical record of trucks incidents along the already widened sections of the Great Western highway, and indeed along the RTA/RMS’s favourite creation, its F3 Motorway.

The following recent reports of trucking incidents are testament to the trucking menace that trucking expressways attract.

.

2nd March 2013:   ‘Overturned Truck Closes F3 at Mount White’

.

<<Mount White: The F3 remains closed northbound approaching the Old Pacific Highway Overpass in Mount White due to a truck accident.  Motorists are being diverted off the F3 onto the Old Pacific Highway at the Hawkesbury Interchange in Mooney Mooney.  Emergency services and RMS crews are on site, working to clear the accident as quickly as possible…>

.

[Source:  ^http://www.facebook.com/livetrafficnsw/posts/451301384941574]

.

27 Feb 2013:  ‘Lanes reopen on F3 after gas leak’

.

<<All southbound and northbound lanes have reopened on the F3 near Motorway Link Road in Warnervale now that gas bottles are no longer leaking on the back of a truck.  Gas cylinders began leaking on the back of a truck near Motorway Link Road about 6.45pm, forcing the closure of southbound lanes and one northbound lane.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Lanes reopen on F3 after gas leak’, 20130227, by Sam Rigney, The Newcastle Herald, ^http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1330772/lanes-reopen-on-f3-after-gas-leak/?cs=305]

.

20 Feb 2013:  ‘F3 Truck Fire’

.

<<There was a lucky escape for a truck driver on the Central Coast yesterday.  Just after 11am, a Rutherford-bound semi trailer full of clay caught fire, forcing the closure of northbound lanes of the F3 Freeway at Mount White.  The driver, from Victoria, had pulled the rig over after seeing smoke billowing from the engine.  He escaped unharmed but the same couldn’t be said for the prime mover.>>

.

[Source:  ‘F3 Truck Fire’, 20130220, ^http://www.nbnnews.com.au/index.php/2013/02/20/f3-truck-fire-2/]

.

7 Feb 2013:  ‘Hume Highway traffic affected after truck roll over’

.

<<Both northbound lanes of the Hume Highway were closed south of Tarcutta following the accident but one northbound lane was since been re-opened.  The accident about 15km south of Tarcutta occurred shortly after 9am this morning.   Emergency services are in attendance and a HAZMAT team has been sent following reports of diesel over the road.  Motorists are advised to drive with caution if in the area and to allow for extra time on their journey.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Hume Highway traffic affected after truck roll over’, 20130207, ^http://www.dailyadvertiser.com.au/story/1285399/hume-highway-traffic-affected-after-truck-roll-over/]

.

Nov 2012:  ‘Traffic slow at Ourimbah following truck rollover’

.

<<Traffic is slowing on the F3 Freeway near Ourimbah on the Central Coast where a semi-trailer rolled onto its side about 9.30am.  It is understood the driver was trapped for a short time but has since been freed and police are on-site managing the clean up and traffic control.>>

.

[Source: ‘Traffic slow at Ourimbah following truck rollover’, 20121108, by Gabriel Wingate-Pearse, The Newcastle Herald, ^http://www.theherald.com.au/story/786786/traffic-slow-at-ourimbah-following-truck-rollover/]

.

Mar 2012:  ‘Police target second trucking firm over safety’

.

<<New South Wales police are targeting another truck company over suspected serious safety breaches.  Trucks from the South Australian-based Scott’s transport are being stopped at several heavy vehicle checking stations, including the F3 freeway at Mount White and the Hume Highway at Marulan.  Officials from Roads and Maritime Services are also involved in the operation.

Police say one of the company’s B-double trucks was caught driving on the Hume Highway at Mittagong at 142 kilometres per hour early on Monday morning.  Officers are searching for 32 Scott’s trucks out of the company’s fleet of more than 300, and say that number may rise.  They say the trucks will then undergo a comprehensive mechanical inspection.  The investigation follows an operation against Sydney-based Lennons Transport Services, where police say speed limiting devices in numerous trucks had been tampered with.

A Lennons driver is before the courts charged over a crash that killed three people on the Hume Highway at Menangle in January.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Police target second trucking firm over safety’, 20120308, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-07/police-target-second-trucking-firm-over-safety/3874324]

.

Jul 2011:  ‘Delays on freeway after truck rollover’

.

<<NSW motorists on the F3 freeway are being warned to expect significant delays after a B-double truck rolled over at Cooranbong southwest of Newcastle.  The truck, which was carrying milk, rolled onto its side and skidded for several metres at the Freemans Drive overpass before being hit by a ute.

The truck driver was taken to hospital but the woman driving the ute escaped injury.  A salvage operation is underway but it is expected the freeway will be blocked for several hours. Southbound traffic is being diverted at Palmers Drive to re-enter at Freemans Drive southbound on-ramp.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Delays on freeway after truck rollover’, 20110713, AAP, ^http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/delays-on-freeway-after-truck-rollover/story-e6frf7jx-1226093503064]

.

Aug 2010:  ‘Heavy metal horror as deaths soar’

.

Lost load … the scene at Chullora where a refrigerated pantech fell from a truck

[Source:  Picture: Bill Hearne, The Daily Telegraph]

.

<<It was a year of carnage for the state’s truck drivers, with the number of fatal accidents increasing by more than 90 per cent, government statistics reveal.

There were 23 fatal crashes involving heavy rigid trucks – non-articulated vehicles greater than eight tonnes – in 2009. This was up from 12 a year earlier, the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) said.  The BITRE data also showed the number of people killed in accidents involving heavy rigid trucks in NSW was up 100 per cent to 24, when deaths in Australia decreased by 14.7 per cent.

The RTA dismissed claims that the increase in the road death statistics were a cause for concern.  The RTA’s NSW Centre for Road Safety director Soames Job said the increase was the result of a reduction in deaths the year before.   “The main number that produces the outcome is the low number of deaths the previous year. It was extraordinary that we had so few in 2008,” Dr Job said.

Fatal accidents involving articulated trucks fell from 47 in 2008 to 34 in 2009, BITRE said.  The figures came as a truck driver had a lucky escape in Sydney’s west on Tuesday night.

The refrigerated section of a meat carrier sheared from the truck and rolled on to the Hume Highway flyover at Chullora.  A crane was brought in to right the truck to clear the road.

Dr Job said in many crashes, the smaller vehicle might be at fault.  “Lots of these accidents will involve speed and fatigue and that is what we are trying to address,” he said. “We have this large program of speed enforcement in areas where there is known heavy truck traffic and that is why we have said we’ll roll out 20 locations of point-to-point speed cameras across our highway network”..>>

.

[Source:  ‘Heavy metal horror as deaths soar’, 20100812, by Rhys Haynes, The Daily Telegraph, ^http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-news/heavy-metal-horror-as-deaths-soar/story-e6freuzi-1225904114783]

.

Aug 2010:  ‘B-double crashes on F3, shutting southbound lanes’

.

<<Motorists using the F3 Freeway are being told to divert their travel or face significant traffic delays after a B-double carrying gas cylinders crashed today.  The truck was carrying 1600 nine kilogram cylinders when it hit the eastern brick wall just before the Hawkesbury River Bridge about 9:15am.

No one was injured but the crash forced police to close two of the three southbound lanes. Northbound lanes remain open and all lanes are expected to be opened by 4pm.  Southbound motorists are being urged to avoid the area by taking the Pacific Highway exit at Brooklyn,” a police statement says.  “The gas cylinders are being removed by hand for safety reasons prior to the B-double being removed.  Inquiries into the crash are continuing.>>

.

[Source:  ‘B-double crashes on F3, shutting southbound lanes’, 20100831, ^http://www.fullyloaded.com.au/…]

.

Jun 2010:  ‘Driver dies after flipping truck on F3’

.

<<A man has died in a truck accident on the F3 at Mount White on the New South Wales central coast yesterday.  Police say the driver was turning into a heavy vehicle checking station when his trailer jackknifed at about 3:30pm.  The truck then flipped onto the driver’s side before sliding into a power pole.  The male driver, who has not been formally identified, was killed.  A report will be prepared for the Coroner.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Driver dies after flipping truck on F3’, 20100614, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-06-14/driver-dies-after-flipping-truck-on-f3/865866]

.

Apr 2010:  ‘Highway smash raises response time questions’

.

<<The New South Wales Roads Minister says the RTA did not act quickly enough to re-open the F3 Freeway after an accident south of Newcastle yesterday, which left motorists stranded for hours.

A flat-bed truck ran into the back of a fully loaded fuel tanker on the freeway around midday near Mount White, with the accident closing all northbound lanes.

The RTA set up a contraflow around the accident site, using southbound lanes for motorists heading north, and diverting southbound traffic along the old Pacific Highway.

Questions are being asked why it took so long to set up the contraflow, which was not in place until at least eight hours after the crash.

Hazmat crews worked to remove fuel from the tanker, with the Fire Brigade declaring the area safe sometime around midnight.

The Roads and Transport Minister David Campbell says he will be meeting with the RTA today to discuss the delay in re-opening the road.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Highway smash raises response time questions’,  20100413, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-04-13/highway-smash-raises-response-time-questions/2588890]

.

Apr 2010:  ‘F3 still closed after tanker crash’

.

<<The northbound lanes of the F3 freeway north of Sydney could remain closed for up to six hours this evening after a truck accident.

A truck crashed into the back of a fuel tanker at Mount White and traffic is being diverted via the Old Pacific Highway.

The man driving the truck was taken to hospital with serious head injuries.

NSW Fire Brigade controller Ian Krimmer says it could take some time before the fuel is transferred from the tanker and the freeway is re-opened.

“Not good news at all unfortunately. We’re in the hands of the transport company that is trying on scene to conduct the pumping process,” he said.

“When it arrives on scene we have to remember there’s some 43,000 litres of fuel before we can remove the tanker from the road.

“That process could take four to six hours.”>>

.

[Source:  ‘F3 still closed after tanker crash’, ABC News, 20100412, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-04-12/f3-still-closed-after-tanker-crash/2599556]

.

Apr 2010:  ‘Major delays after F3 truck crash’

.

<<A truck driver has been left with serious head injuries after an accident on the New South Wales central coast.  Police say the accident happened on the F3 Freeway at Mount White at about 11:40am (AEST).  It is believed a flat-bed vegetable truck ran into the back of a fully laden petrol tanker…>>

.

[Source:  ‘Major delays after F3 truck crash’, 20100412, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-04-12/major-delays-after-f3-truck-crash/2596044]

.

Sep 2009:  ‘Delays on Sydney’s F3 after another fatality’

.

<<Traffic is being delayed on the F3 freeway as police investigate a death near the Mooney Mooney Bridge, south of Gosford.  Police say a man fell onto the road and died just after 1pm AEST.  All northbound lanes have been closed while investigations are carried out…>>

.

[Source:  ‘Delays on Sydney’s F3 after another fatality’,  20090903, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-09-03/delays-on-sydneys-f3-after-another-fatality/1415962]

.

Aug 2009:  ‘Young parents and baby die in F3 inferno’

.

The wreckage on the F3 after the fatal crash

A couple and baby killed

[Photo: Matt Black Productions]

.

<<A young Gosford couple and their baby were killed when their car burst into flames in a crash involving a B-double truck and another car on the F3 freeway on the NSW Central Coast yesterday night.

Police said two cars stopped on the freeway before a truck struck both vehicles from behind, killing a 27-year-old woman, a 32-year-old man and a five-month-old baby at 10.50pm. The impact caused one of the cars and the truck to catch fire.  There was also another triple fatality in central-northern NSW about 10.30am today on Newell Highway near Narrabri.

Police said the bodies of the young family were found in the charred car on the 110 km/h marked stretch of road near the Mount White weigh-bridge. Two other people were taken to Gosford Hospital with various injuries.

Metropolitan crash investigator Sergeant Peter Jenkins said the family’s car was completely “incinerated”.  “For some reason the two vehicles have become stationary in lane one, northbound, they’re not in the breakdown lane, they’re actually still in the traffic lane,” he told Macquarie Radio today.

“The young family’s car is the southern vehicle, another northbound car has braked and stopped and swerved to miss it and entered into the breakdown lane.

“Since that’s happened the truck driver’s been exposed to these two vehicles and he’s done what he can, but he hasn’t been able to avoid these two vehicles.”   He said the truck driver was suffering from shock and had been discharged from hospital after speaking to police.

Towers Transport general manager John Perkins said the truck driver was very upset.  “He has no apparent physical injuries … he’s extremely distraught,” Mr Perkins said.

He would not comment on the circumstances surrounding the accident but said the company had never been involved in a fatal crash.  “We’ve been in business for 20 years, we’ve got about 50 trucks, and this is the first time we’ve been faced with something like this,” Mr Perkins said.

The driver of the second car was taken to Gosford Hospital for treatment, but police have been unable to to speak to him. His condition is unknown.   The family has been identified and some relatives have been notified of their deaths, he said.

Sergeant Jenkins played down claims the stretch of road was dangerous, saying he hadn’t been able to attribute a serious crash in the area to the design or condition of the road in the past 20 years.

“I think the F3 is actually quite a good stretch of road in most parts,” he said.

“Inquiries into the circumstances leading up to the crash are continuing,” a police spokesman said.

‘Expect long delays’

Northbound lanes on the F3 freeway out of Sydney have reopened to traffic but motorists are warned to expect long delays.

All northbound lanes were closed while police removed the bodies and wreckage and carried out an investigation until about 11.20am today.

Despite reopening the lanes, traffic is still banked up for almost 10 kilometres between Mount White and the Hawkesbury River, the Road and Traffic Authority says.

“All lanes are open on the F3, but traffic will take a while to clear, an RTA spokesman told AAP.

“Traffic is still heavy with significant delays and people who have been diverted on to the Pacific Highway will also experience significant delays.”

It is the second major crash in two days on the F3 in that area. Four people escaped serious injury in a six-vehicle crash caused when a piece of scaffolding fell off a semitrailer at Mooney Mooney yesterday.

Police are appealing for anyone who might have seen the crash and are yet to speak to crash investigators to contact them via Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Young parents and baby die in F3 inferno’,  20090828,  by Georgina Robinson, Dylan Welch and AAP, ^http://www.smh.com.au/national/young-parents-and-baby-die-in-f3-inferno-20090828-f1fe.html]

.

SELECTED COMMENTS TO THIS INCIDENT:

.

Maxamillion:

<<Car drivers have had lots of restrictions placed on them over the years in an attempt to reduce the road toll including school zones due to a slight increase in accidents. A 100% increase in heavy truck deaths is not acceptable. Reduce their speeds to 60kph and reduce fatigue by reducing driving time to 6 hours per day and accidents due to speed or fatigue will drop. Imagine what would happen if car deaths increased 100%. Would we see changes, you can bet on it.>>

.

Rod Pickin:

<<Until the maximum road speed for heavy vehicles is limited to 80kph, you can expect a continued increase in accidents/deaths involving these vehicles. Currently heavy vehicles are being driven dangerously and at high speed as a result of work/deadline pressures imposed upon drivers by owners/operators and major supermarket customers all sanctioned by govt. bodies.

Truly how rediculous is it that a fully loaded B-Double even road train fuel/gas tanker is legally allowed on our highways in the wet to travel at 100kph? that is just inviting major drama so one is entitled to ask, who is putting presure on who in order that this be allowed.>

.

Rob:

<<I’ve noticed the lack of ‘100 speed limited’ signs on most trucks these days as they go flying past me on the highways while I’m obeying the limit.>>

.

Julian:

<<This is sad. The carnage on the F3 goes on, mostly involving semi-trailers. When I take my family on holidays, trucks tail-gate us at 120Kph, and scare the hell out of me.>>

.

Young parents and toddler die in fiery crash:

<<The solution is simple. make speed limit for trucks 70kmh max and must not move out of left lane for whatever reason. the F3 is the most dangerous freeway I have ever driven on, doing 100-110 on blind hills and bends a truck has no way of stopping fast if it has to.>>

.

David:

<<I drive the F3 every day and it is a miracle that more accidents such as these do no occur. In peak hour the average speed of vehicles is in excess of speed limit and cars do this with the knowledge that they are highly unlikely to be caught. When police do drive along the freeway they also average around 10 kph above the speed limit and cars just happily follow them at that speed.

In the road works area you have speed variances of between 80 kph (speed limit) and 120 kph with average of around 100 kph. To sit on the speed limit along that road is nearly more dangerous than speeding.  This is a tragedy as are all road deaths and one can only hope that this does force the authorities into action so that something positive comes from it to get some sanity back into the way drivers behave on this road.>>

.

mirage:

<<I’m sure its another example of a truck driver that was speeding – I travel every few weeks up and down the F3 in a normal sedan at 100-110km per hour and most trucks fly past me except when going up the hills…the Police are not doing enough and some truck drivers just think they can do what they want…same attitude problem as the ferry drivers on the harbour and bus drivers…they think the road is theirs and they are smarter than the rest, professional drivers…they should know that in the end the extra speed doesnt make much difference…>>

.

More Trains, Less Trucks:

<<One partial solution would be to build a freight line so that we could send more goods by rail. Think about howmany trucks would be off the road for each extra train.   I am sure that the truckies would complain about potential loss of jobs, but that wasn’t the case when the Ghan was extended from Alice Springs to Darwin.

Instead of losing jobs, the truckies found that they had more short haul jobs supplying the freight trains and less long haul jobs with all of the associated safety issues.>>

.

Kate:  

<<I used to drive the F3 regularly but now catch the train as it is too dangerous. If you look at the accident record over the past few years, you will see most involve trucks. The F3 is one of the few decent roads in the state, yet now ruined by huge speeding semis and other trucks that are a terrible hazard to cars. On top of that everyone speeds like the devil, with impunity it seems. All those massive tonnes of heavy goods in transit should be shipped by rail. The whole transport thing is getting completely out of hand.>>

.

frederick:

<<I am often horrified at the increase in trucks on our roads and the frequent aggressive driving adopted by these drivers. Driving generally on our roads has become so bad that this sort of horror is going to keep happening. Anyone who drives at or near the speed limit would know. Unless of course our pollies have the guts to do something about it and the Police start to enforce some of the existing road rules. With three warning signs before every fixed speed camera we might as well adopt a new slogan for NSW – THE DUMB STATE! 

How many more lives is it going to take before we come to our senses?>>

.

Ian C. Purdie:

<<Yes, so trucks are speed limited to 100 kph, the sign on the back says so. That would be the reason they either tail gate you at 110 kph or overtake.>>

.

waqi13:

<<I travel on F3 several times each week for work. At least once a week I have a close call with truck drivers not paying attention to what is going on around them. It seems that 90% of trucks have blinkers and side mirrors that don’t work – they change lanes at the drop of a hat with no indication, and in the worst case scenario to overtake another truck that they cannot go fasther than anyway – creating a long line of traffic, chugging up a hill at much less then the speed limit.

I have learnt to give trucks a wide berth, because they will do what they want to do without checking for any cars around them.>>

.

Daniel:

<<It’s a dangerous road at night and drivers need to have full concentration on the freeway. they need to stick to the speed limit. Ive driven on it so many times and I do 110 and others are flying past me all the time. Trucks are going faster than the 100 they are supposed to be doing. Most of the time now I use the old Pacific Highway through to Gosford. its just too dangerous with all the rats on the road.>>

.

JSKS:

<<It’s very sad indeed. In fact 110km/hr is a very fast speed for a fully loaded truck. It’s not easy for the truck to stop that easily when their loads are full. At 10.30pm, the truck light shining distance is at best 30 meters. I believed by the time the driver realised that there is a car in front, it’s too late to stop effectively. In other countries, while the Freeway limit is 110km/hr, the maximum speed limit for truck is only 90km/hr. Yes, this will delay delivery time but I think HUMAN LIFE is more important than delivery time.>

.

SP233K:

<<I drive on the F3 every day, and seriously no one obeys speed limits,they tailgate,they speed like crazy,the have no regard for anyone else,trucks speed and change lanes cutting people off and don’t care at all.  Every day i worry i will end up in an accident and as soon as it gets dark trucks drive about a thousand times worse,they would have no way of stopping quickly. 

Police constantly pull over cars (in the event there are actually police patrolling which is not very often).  I really think they should be pulling over trucks as well.  I hope this is a warning to everyone to be more careful on the F3, surely there have been enough horrific accidents for everyone to see how dangerous it is. 

My heart goes out to the families of the people involved in last night’s accident.  I drove past this morning and it really was a horrible scene.>>

.

[Sources:  ‘Surviving driver may hold F3 horror key to why young family stopped on freeway’, 20090829, by Rhys Haynes, Justin Vallejo, The Daily Telegraph, ^http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/surviving-driver-may-hold-f3-horror-key-to-why-young-family-stopped-on-freeway/story-e6freuy9-1225767218559: and ‘Young parents and baby die in F3 inferno’, 20090828, Sydney Morning Herald, ^http://www.smh.com.au/national/young-parents-and-baby-die-in-f3-inferno-20090828-f1fe.html]

.

May 2009:  ‘B-double involved in F3 collision with car’

.

<<There has been yet another traffic accident on the F3 involving a B-double truck, overnight.   About 10.40pm last night (Tuesday), the driver of the B-double truck, a 38-year-old man from Cundletown, allegedly changed lanes and ran straight into a car being driven by a 63-year-old man from Umina.  Both vehicles were travelling north along the freeway at Wahroonga, near Alexandria Pde.

When the car was hit, it spun out of control, police said, and collided with the median guardrail.  The driver of the car was trapped until emergency crews cut him from the wreckage.

He was taken to the Royal North Shore Hospital with suspected back injuries and remains in a serious but stable condition.  Hornsby Police have told the Advocate they will wait on the results of blood test before taking any action.  No charges have yet been laid.>>

.

[Source:  ‘B-double involved in F3 collision with car’, 20090527, Hornsby Advocate, ^http://hornsby-advocate.whereilive.com.au/news/story/another-b-double-involved-in-f3-collision-with-car/]

.

Apr 2009:  ‘F3 truck ‘cut off’ before cliff plunge’

.

<<Police are searching for the driver of a white Kenworth truck seen close to a semitrailer that plunged 80 metres off the F3, north of Sydney yesterday.  Emergency services workers have recovered the body of the 40-year-old driver. The driver is reported to have been married with a young child.

The semitrailer will be salvaged by crane from 8pm today, with northbound traffic to be diverted from the F3 at Wahroonga.  The B-Double Linfox semitrailer was carrying toilet paper when it crashed through a safety barrier at the side of the freeway and fell into the valley near Hornsby about 11.35am yesterday.

Two northbound lanes of the F3 were closed and traffic was diverted after the crash.  Police are investigating reports the Sydney man had swerved to miss another truck which had changed lanes in front of him, before his vehicle speared off the road.  Police today appealed for the driver of the Kenworth truck to come forward.

“We are appealing for the driver of a white Kenworth that was close to the [semitrailer] at the time of the crash to contact police through the Crime Stoppers hotline and tell us what they know or what they might have seen at the time the truck went over the railing,” a NSW Police spokeswoman said.

Senior Sergeant Peter Jenkins of the Metropolitan Crash Investigation Unit said witnesses told police there were some trucks near the semitrailer before the crash happened.

“It would apply at this stage that they might not have contributed to the crash. They might be totally innocent people driving along. But we would like to interview them because they may know something about the reason why this gentleman has left the roadway,” he said.  “So we are appealing to them as witnesses at this stage.”

Senior Sergeant Jenkins said it was raining quite heavily when the accident occurred and police would be investigating all the possible accident factors, including weather, road surface, traffic, mechancial issues and the driver’s schedule.

But Phil Easterbrook, who lives near where the accident happened and heard a bang, said the accident was not unexpected.  “We always hear the sound of horns going off and of braking. They are [hooting] to avert an accident because people are cutting them off,” he said.  “We hear banging quite regularly from vehicles from accidents happening.”

Mr Easterbrook, who used to drive a truck, said trucks would try to build up speed as they went up the hill, and so would not like other vehicles cutting them off.

.

ROAD SURFACE HAZARD

Paul Gerrard, who uses the F3 daily to travel from Kellyville to his work in Tuggerah and back, said the road surface where the accident occurred had been a serious hazard for a few months.

“Approximately four to five months ago the original freeway road surface [bitumen] was removed by mechanical pavement machines in an overnight operation that went for several weeks,” he said.  “In the absence of signs it appears the pavement was removed to enable the whole freeway to be resurfaced with bitumen after the widening project [of the freeway] is completed.

Mr Gerrard said the northbound lanes, which were resurfaced, now had a rough texture and were dangerous to drive on especially during heavy rain.  “The road gets far too much water and there’s no control. My experience is that, during heavy rain, drivers must slow to approximately 70kmh or the car aquaplanes left. It is an expectation and not random.”

He said the rails along these lanes were dented from large impacts of vehicles hitting them.

An RTA spokesman said that, while it could not comment on the accident as it was the subject of a police investigation, concrete roads such as the ones on the F3 were not uncommon in NSW.

“The RTA regularly carries out tests on road surface across the state and this section of road was last tested in August and September of last year. These tests showed that the road surface provided adequate wet-weather grip,” the spokesman said.  The RTA spokesman said it understood the accident took place “on a downhill section where surface water would not accumulate”, and advised motorists to slow down and adjust their driving when there was wet weather.

From 2003 to 2007, there were six crashes reported on the 1km northbound section of of the F3 just north of the Edgeworth David Avenue overpass at Wahroonga, the spokesman said.

None of the crashes involved heavy vehicles and there were no deaths, he said.

.

CRANE FAILED TO MOVE SEMI-TRAILER

A crane was brought in to lift the semitrailer, but a 7?-hour operation from 4.30pm to midnight by emergency services failed to move it.

“The boom on it to go down to the truck was not long enough,” an RTA spokeswoman said.  A larger 400-tonne crane would be brought in to lift the truck tonight, the spokeswoman said.

It was not yet decided which company would be supplying the crane, although it was likely Linfox would foot the bill, she said.

The RTA said the crane would take three to four hours to assemble, and the same time to disassemble. It said it would take four hours to move the truck.  The RTA will close access to the F3 northbound from the Pacific Highway and Pennant Hills Road at Wahroonga during the salvage operation.

Traffic would rejoin the F3 at Berowa. Diversions were expected to be in place until 8am tomorrow, the RTA said. Southbound lanes would not be affected.  Yesterday’s fears that the fuel spilt from the truck would cause environmental damage have also dissipated, NSW Fire Brigades spokesman Craig Brierley said.

The diesel from the truck spread over a large area and sank into the soil beneath the truck, but did not reach the water catchment area nearby, Mr Brierley said.  The low amount of fuel in the tank and its cargo meant there were fewer fears about its impact on the environment, he said.  “There was only 500 litres of diesel on the truck, which is not a lot, so that made the job a lot easier,” Mr Brierley said.   Hazmat crews were at the site of the crash for most of yesterday night and would check the area again when the truck was removed, he said.

.

[Ed:  Was the RTA recklessly culpable for the driver’s death?]

.

FUND ESTABLISHED TO HELP FAMILYT OF DEAD TRUCKIE

The young family of the driver will be the recipients of a fund established by transport union officials.

“The man who died yesterday had a young family and what happened can only be described as a tragedy,” Transport Workers’ Union NSW secretary Wayne Forno said today.  “The TWU is calling on all members to donate to a fund we are setting up for the man’s family, and Linfox has indicated they will match those donations.  “But we are also calling for a full investigation into the incident, and for the coroner to examine how hyper-competitive road freight industry and the inadequate pay and conditions of truck drivers are contributing to more deaths on the road.”

A Linfox spokesman said the company did not comment on donations, but “conditionally we would match what colleagues contribute”.>>

.

[Source:  ‘F3 truck ‘cut off’ before cliff plunge’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20090422, by Glenda Kwek, AAP, ^http://www.smh.com.au/national/f3-truck-cut-off-before-cliff-plunge-20090422-aeal.html]

.

.

Oct 2008:  ‘Truck catches fire on F3’

.

<<There has heavy traffic on the F3 freeway north of Sydney after a truck caught on fire just before 11:00am AEDT today.   The accident blocked all northbound lanes at Mount White, but traffic is now moving slowly after a lane was reopened.   It is not yet known what caused the blaze.

Kate Martin was driving on the freeway when the accident happened.  “It was on fire, really badly on fire, black smoke just streaming out of the truck,” she said.  “It took a while for the police to arrive. It was burning for about 10 minutes before any services arrived.”>>

.

[Source:  ‘Truck catches fire on F3’,  20081009, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-10-09/truck-catches-fire-on-f3/536316]

.

Nov 2007:  ‘Drivers urged to delay after F3 smash’

.

<<Commuters on the New South Wales Central Coast are being urged to delay their drive to Sydney after a crash involving a semi-trailer and several cars on the F3 freeway, near Mount White.

The Ambulance Service says two women and a teenage girl are in a stable condition in hospital after the accident.  Roads and Traffic Authority spokesman Alec Brown says all three southbound lanes are blocked and traffic is backed up for three kilometres.

Mr Brown says it is not known how long it will take to clear the accident.  “It’s impossible to predict. It really does depend on how smoothly it goes,” he said.  “We’ve removed one truck already. We’re working on the rest of the vehicles and that’s something we’re doing as a priority.”

Traffic is being diverted onto the Old Pacific Highway.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Drivers urged to delay after F3 smash’, 20071109, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-11-09/drivers-urged-to-delay-after-f3-smash/720460]

.

Motorway Widening Cancer

Road Widening is a Chicken and Egg causality dilemma

– widen it and they shall come and then congest it, so widen it again…

.

<<It doesn’t matter who’s right in this situation. The bigger problem has been the failure of the Australian government for setting unrealistic freight rail goals for Port Botany.

After setting a goal of shipping 40 percent of all Port Botany cargo by rail, the Australian government has dropped its target to 28 percent

“’Forty per cent was unrealistic and unachievable and typified Labor’s propensity to pluck figures out of the air,” the Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, told the Sydney Morning Herald.

The increased number of trucks on the road is already causing considerable delays for motorists. Last Friday, one semi-trailer jack-knifed across one highway, according to the Herald, causing a traffic jam roughly 5 miles long.>>

.

[Source:  ‘Sydney traffic worsens as freight forwarding climbs’, 20111128, by Kevin Scarpati, Supply Chain Digital, ^http://www.supplychaindigital.com/global_logistics/sydney-traffic-worsens-as-freight-forwarding-climbs]

Cartage Australia’s demonstration B-double sand tipper Volvo truck

 22 metres long – parked in Katoomba, Blue Mountains.

(Photo by Editor, 20120210, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

.

Like most news across the Blue Mountains region concerning issues likely to pose a significant impact upon the community and the environment, one learns about it on the grapevine.

So two weeks ago, I learnt about this Melbourne trucking company planning to introduce 22 metre long B-Double trucks along the Great Western Highway.  Such long trucks are currently banned as being too long for this regional highway through the many towns, villages and residential and school zones of the Blue Mountains.

I learn that the trucking company, Cartage Australia, is due to demonstrate one of its B-Doubles to the local community and in the process try to justify why it should be exempt from the current New South Wales Government prohibition.  But the announcement is not a general public one, so naturally only a handful of the community turn up to the demonstration, because only a handful of the community were made aware.

.

Why Are Oversized and Overmass Trucks Restricted?

.

Heavy vehicles using the Great Western Highway between Victoria Pass and Lapstone Hill are currently restricted to being no more than 19 metres in length.  Such vehicles are deemed to be ‘oversized’ and or ‘overmass’ to mix normally with day-to-day traffic.

According to the RTA’s (recently renamed ‘RMS’)…

“As stated in the General Class 1 Oversize (Load-Carrying Vehicle) Notice 2007 and the General Class 1 Oversize (Special-Purpose Vehicle) Notice 2007, night travel on the Great Western Highway between the Nepean River at Emu Plains and Medlow Bath for vehicles wider than 2.5 metres or longer than 19 metres is only permitted between 1.00am and 5.00am.”

[Source:  ‘RTA Operating Conditions Oversize Overmass’ Version 2, 2008, page 23, New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority, ^http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/heavyvehicles/downloads/operating_conditions-oversize_overmass.pdf , >Read document (pdf)  720kb]

.

The following justifications identified by the South Australian Director of Road Safety Legislation are just as pertinent to New South Wales:

.

• The need for suitable protection of the State’s road system from structural damage
• The safety and convenience of all road users
• The capability of the vehicle to safely carry the load
• Environmental impacts
• Equitable treatment of all sectors of the industry.

.

[Source: ‘Policy for the Transport of Oversize and Overmass Indivisible Loads and Vehicles, MR 434 06/06, June 2006, South Australian Government,  Department for Transport Energy and Infrastructure,  ^http://www.transport.sa.gov.au/pdfs/freight/policy_indivisible_vehicles.pdf,  Read Document (pdf) 930kb]

.

In New South Wales, rules governing B-Doubles are prescribed under the RTA B-Doubles General_notice_2005   (The Road Transport (General) Act 2005 – General B-Double Notice under Division 4 of Part 2 of the Road Transport (Mass, Loading and Access) Regulation, 2005. >Read Regulation (pdf)  (690kb)

.

The Sand Cartage Contract

.

Hy-Tec’s Sand Quarry south of Hartley

(Google Maps)

.

Melbourne-based construction material trucker, Cartage Australia,  is bidding for a sand cartage contract to Hy-Tec to deliver construction sand to the Sydney markets using 22 metre B-double trucks.  This will mean many of these long B-double sand trucks dominating the Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains.  The route is to be from Hy-Tec’s sand quarry  from Jenolan Caves Rd south of the village of Hartley to Sydney.

Hy-Tec is a group of companies which are wholly owned by publicly listed Adelaide Brighton Limited, a prominent Australian construction materials and lime producing company with operations throughout Australia.    Two major construction projects that Hy-Tec is currently delivering to in Sydney include ‘The Ark’ –  a 21 storey commercial high-rise in North Sydney and Presida’s T1 industrial 35,000 cubic metre industrial building complex at the Norwest Business Park in Bella Vista.

Director of Cartage Australia, Wayne Vella, argues that his Volvo fleet of B-doubles are “longer but safer”.    Yet according to its website,

“HY-TEC’s focuses on accurate delivery times, taking direct customer enquiries at each concrete plant and quarry, supported by a large fleet of concrete trucks for quick response and best in class on time delivery.”

.

This time-critical delivery focus necessitates that the sand cartage from Hartley to Sydney will be time critical.  This means the pressure will be on drivers to meat delivery deadlines and so they be in a hurry and so this poses risks of more trucks and larger heavier trucks speeding along the Great Western Highway, undermining the safety of the road for other road users.

Cartage Australia provides its services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, hauling quarry products around Melbourne – and more recently, throughout Sydney, following the opening of a new facility late last year.  This means the sand cartage over the Great Western Highway has potential to be 24 hours a day.

“We opened the Sydney operation so that we can offer the same sort of service to customers there as we provide in Melbourne, and so that we can continue to grow the company. Customers can call the company at any time and we’ll strive to get the job done for them,” says Ray.

Although the Sydney arm of the business has only been fully operational for a few months, Ray is already looking at ways to further grow the business. “Wayne and I want to grow Cartage Australia as much as we can,” says Ray, as he points to further growth planned for 2012.

[Source: ‘Cartage Australia – driven by determination’, Prime Moving Magazine, February 2012, ^http://www.primemovermag.com.au/featured/article/cartage-australia-driven-by-determination]

.

The Big Sell

At the outdoors meeting on Friday 10th February 2012 staged by Cartage Australia to a handful of the local community at Katoomba, the demostration truck was all but straight out of the factory.  It was bright, shiny, new tyres, flawless and made for selling the company’s point of view.  The sell was all about providing Performance Based Standards (PBS) for trucking to get around the 19 metre truck length restriction.  That needs to be explained by government.

Director Wayne Vella explaining all the positives about his shiny FM480 Volvo

.

But when Vella started his long spiel about the truck’s  state of the art features and benefits, the focus became all about the magnificence of his showroom truck and not about the community’s concerns about copping more and longer trucks through the Blue Mountains.

Vella argued that it was not a B-double, but look at the photo of it:

.

We had to laugh when Vella professed that:

“the exhaust is so clean you could breath it.”

.

“We have applied for a special exemption and this requires us to satisfy all the high performance safety standards in place and also to show the State Government evidence of community support for these trucks.     “If we get the nod, we could replace the dog-tipper trucks [used at Hartley Quarry to transport coal to Sydney via the Blue Mountains] with Volvo 500 rigid class trucks within four weeks.”

This is Cartage Australia’s current proposal to service the Hartley Quarry

1 truck every 17 minutes

.

This is a Volvo FM480 too and it carts fuel and meets the Euro standards.

A B-double is a B-double.

.

Here was the politically correct article on the subject published in the local newspaper a few days later.  It reads almost as a scripted media release by the trucking company on prime reading page 5.

.

‘Company seeks truck length exemption’

[Source: ‘Company seeks truck length exemption’,  by Shane Desiatnik, 20120215, Blue Mountains Gazette, p.5 ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/company-seeks-truck-length-exemption/2456181.aspx]

.

A Victorian company hopes to gain the support of highway safety lobby groups for a proposal to operate a fleet of “longer but safer” heavy vehicles through the Blue Mountains.

Heavy vehicles using the Great Western Highway between Victoria Pass and Lapstone Hill are currently restricted to being no more than 19 metres in length.

But Cartage Australia has applied to the State Government for a 12-month special exemption to replace its old dog-tipper trucks servicing Hartley Quarry with new 22-metre Volvo trucks.

The company’s director Wayne Vella gave about 15 people a demonstration of the truck’s features at Goldsmith Place in Katoomba on February 10, which include a quiet and energy efficient ‘Euro 5’ standard engine, rollover protection, quiet disc brakes, GPS satellite navigation, 24-hour driver monitoring and larger load capacity.

He said the Volvo trucks set a new benchmark in road safety, did not use noisy compression brakes and three trucks would be able to carry the same load as four dog-tipper trucks, so the number of truck trips per day would decline significantly.

“Yes, the trucks are just under three metres longer than the current limit for the Blue Mountains, but they are not B-double trucks, they only tow one trailer and are only longer to include an extra set of axles to more evenly spread the load,” he said.

“We have applied for a special exemption and this requires us to satisfy all the high performance safety standards in place and also to show the State Government evidence of community support for these trucks.

“We have introduced these trucks in Victoria and we believe if we don’t take this step here you will end up getting older and older trucks on the road that never get replaced.

“If we get the nod, we could replace the dog-tipper trucks [used at Hartley Quarry to transport coal to Sydney via the Blue Mountains] with Volvo 500 rigid class trucks within four weeks.”

Blackheath Highway Action Group chairperson Michael Paag said he would forward information about the proposal at Cartage Australia’s request to members of all highway action groups and other organisations like the Katoomba Chamber of Commerce and Community.

“Members of the general public who are interested in obtaining information or providing feedback about this proposal can contact me,” he said.  (Ed.  Contact details withheld for privacy).

Mr Vella said he met with Roads and Maritime Services managers in Katoomba also on February 10 to discuss the proposal and notified Member for Blue Mountains Roza Sage in November when the application for the special permit was lodged.’

.

Ed:  The message is beware of selective community announcements, as they are selective and not public for reasons to suit the purpose of the protagonist – in this case Cartage Australia’s potentially lucrative contract to truck thousands of tonnes of sand over the Great Western Highway – 1 truck every 17 minutes!

.

NRMA on Truck Safety:

.

Statistics show that road freight continues to grow 1.5 times as fast as the economy, with estimates that freight is expected to double by 2020.  The heavy vehicle industry constantly pushes for increases in length and load.

According to the NRMA, it is important for truck drivers to keep a safe following distance.  The NRMA believes any changes should be balanced with improved safety and environmental performance. As such NRMA would like to see heavy vehicles equipped with front, side and rear under-run guards (to ensure light vehicles don’t run underneath the heavy vehicle in the event of a crash) and ABS brakes. ABS brakes allow the driver to steer while braking heavily and minimise stopping distances.

NRMA also believes heavy vehicles should be equipped with tamper-proof, on-board monitoring and speed limiting equipment. Electronic on-board monitors can better observe driving hours and driver behaviour.

NRMA also sees a need for increased enforcement of heavy vehicle speed limits. The RTA has introduced its ‘Three Strikes’ scheme, aimed at penalising heavy vehicles which are repeatedly caught exceeding the speed limit (if three strikes are recorded in a three year period the vehicle’s regisitration is suspended). However, they do have to be caught first.  A trailer has a different licence plate number to the prime mover which can make it difficult to identify the vehicle when it is photographed from the rear.

NRMA would like to see all heavy vehicle camera enforcement use front and rear detection.

NRMA also supports opportunities to put more freight onto rail where distances are long and freight is suited to rail transport, but it’s naive to think that rail can transport everything.’

.

[Source:  ‘Sharing roads with trucks’,  by Karen Fittall, ‘Open Road’  members magazine, NRMA, September/October 2005, ^http://www.mynrma.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/mynrma/hs.xsl/heavy_going.htm]

.

Speeding trucks too dangerous for the Blue Mountains

[Source:  ‘Riverluck Mack’ Flickr, ^http://www.flickr.com/photos/quarterdeck/

.

But the problem is not so much the performance of one trucking company that is aspiring to deliver best practice performance safety, as Cartage Australia is publicly promising.

The problem is the precedent created that permitting one company with 22m long B-doubles will be the thin policy wedge that will allow less conscientious truckers to ply regional roads through residential and school zones.  The problem is one of road safety and across the Blue Mountains, road safety especially when it comes to trucks, has a dismal and worsening road toll record.   As the Great Westren Highway is transformed into a dedicated high speed trucking expressway, it becomes more dangerous.

Cartage Australia may indeed be offering the safest truck on any Australian road, but who is monitoring and enforcing best practice driver behaviour 24 hours a day?  No one!

Road behaviour is simply not monitored and enforced properly by government.  As more and bigger trucks speed along our highways, our highways are becoming dangerous life and death environments which is unacceptable.

.

The Habitat Advocate recommends the following standards for the Great Western Highway through the Blue Mountains:

.

1. No B-doubles, only semi-trailers, rigid trucks and smaller to be permitted to use the Great Western Highway between Hartley and Penrith.  B-doubles to use the Bells Line of Road route.
2. NSW Government to suspend all new expressway development, and instead to focus on a Safety First Policy, implementing safety improvements to the current Great Western Highway width between Lawson and Lithgow, noting that the widened sections east of Lawson all but completed or work in progress
3. Government and freight industry to mandatorily have feasibility study into rail alternatives for any proposal for increasing road line haul – study to be independent and published online with a month of completion
4. Minimum of four speed cameras and four red light cameras installed on the Great Western Highway between Hartley and Nepean River, all hidden and each rotated during the year.  This is to be a permanent arrangement.
5. Minimum of three speed cameras installed on the Bells Line of Road between Lithgow and Windsor, all hidden and each rotated during the year.  This is to be a permanent arrangement.
6. Quality controls introduced for heavy vehicle drivers with ongoing spot checks by both Police and RTA (RMS) – including, highway monitoring of driver behaviour – tail gating, exhaust brake usage, speeds, log book compliance, vehicle condition, load safety, mobile phone usage, higher professionalism standards, etc.
7. Time-based pay to replace all trip based remuneration of all heavy vehicle drivers across NSW
8. Heavy vehicle drivers required to respect and accept variable speed zones across the Great Western Highway, especially through towns and villages and the 40kph zone limits during school morning and afternoon – double demerits for heavy vehicle drivers to reflect the seriousness of heavy vehicles breaching these laws
9. A mandatory concrete barrier to be installed on the entire length of the Great Western Highway between Lithgow and Penrith that an withstand collision by heavy vehicles to prevent head-on collisions
10. A maximum 75kph speed limit for all heavy vehicles to be imposed on the Great Western Highway between Penrith and Lithgow
11. The NSW Government to prepare an economic business case to show the Return on Investment and Pay Back  of the Mt Victoria Bypass estimated to cost $1 billion
12. Prohibit heavy vehicle parking along the highway in Mount Victoria, particularly in the vicinity of the Caltex Service Station.  This to be signposted accordingly, monitored by the RTA (RMS) and fines to apply for transgressions
13. RTA (RMS) to construct one fully accredited heavy vehicle rest area at Mount Boyce on both sides of the highway, and a second at Falconbridge on both sides of the highway to fully comply with the standards set by the National Transport Commission’s Heavy Vehicle Driver Fatigue Legislation, which came into effect on 29 September 2008.

.

Postcript:

.

Blue Mountains Gazette 20071001:

Victoria Pass
Monday, 1 October 2007
Posted By Dean Driscoll, Mt Victoria.

‘Another horrific accident going down the hill at Mt Vic on Sunday. The whole zone from just east of the township to the bottom of the mountain is 60km/hour yet a large percentage of drivers going through Mt Vic seem to struggle to brake to that limit. Surely the area must be regarded as a black spot?

With persistant tail-gaters trying to speed their way through as if it was a freeway, it is time the authories give a serious look at how to manage an out of control situation’.
.

.

.

No chance!

A B-Double crosses the wrong side of the Hume Highway

and slams head-on into a car killing all three occupants

.

Last Friday, a brick-laden truck crossed a grass embankment, crashed through a guard rail and ended up on the opposite side of the Menangle Bridge on the Hume Highway south of Sydney.  It slammed head-on into a car killing the three people inside.

[Source: ‘From joy to instant death‘, by Nick Ralston, 20120125, Illawarra Mercury, ^http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/news/local/news/general/from-joy-to-instant-death/2432730.aspx]

.

It is only a matter of time before such a tragedy befalls the Great Western Highway in the Blue Mountains as more and more B-Doubles ply this regional route.

Driving along many highways throughout Australia has become deadly as more and bigger trucks travel faster just a metre away on the other side of a white line or two.  Not only are there more semi-trailers, but trucking companies are increasingly putting larger capacity B-double trucks on the road, which can weigh over 70 tonnes.

When 70 tonnes hits you it is an instant wall of death.

A speeding semi ploughs into the front yard of a home in Rosanna,

in eastern Melbourne on 21st September 2010

.

Yet both Liberal and Labor governments at both national and state level are pouring billions of taxpayer dollars to facilitate more road freight on Australian highways, while ignoring the comparative line haul efficiencies and inherent safety of rail freight.

In 1998, the New South Wales Labor Government announced a 12-year $360 million ‘upgrade’ of the Great Western and Mitchell Highways between Penrith (outer Sydney) and Orange in the central west of NSW.   In addition, the Federal Liberal-National Coalition Government committed an extra $100 million as part of its Auslink National Network.

The ‘upgrade’ meant transforming the two lane regional highway over the Blue Mountains into a four lane 80kph expressway to facilitate greater and faster trucking – a ‘trucking expressway‘.  The then promoted features of this new trucking expressway were to be:

• Widening of the highway to a four lane, divided road between Penrith and Katoomba
• Widening the highway to mostly three lanes between Katoomba and Mount Victoria (including Blackheath)
• Providing additional overtaking lanes along stretches of the highway
• Improving pedestrian and traffic facilities at intersections crossing the highway in townships
• providing bicycle facilities along the highway
• Extensive landscaping and urban design initiatives within Blue Mountains towns and villages.’

.

[Source:  NSW Roads and Traffic Authority Great Western Highway Upgrade’ brochure, January 2002]

.

Well, the widening is certainly carving through Blue Mountains communities and bushland. Pedestrian walkways and crossings are few and far between and the few cycle lanes are within a metre of B-doubles hurtling along at 80kph – those that stick to the speed limit. Who’d be a cyclist on the Great Western Highway now unless one had a death wish?

Destruction in progress yesterday at Boddington Hill, east of Wentworth Falls

Great Western Highway Blue Mountains

(Photo by Editor 20120201, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

.

In September 2008, the then Federal Labor MP Bob Debus for the Macquarie electorate (covering the Blue Mountains region) committed another $450 million on the Great Western Highway to bypass the village of Mount Victoria  and River Lett Hill near Lithgow.

Debus revealed the purpose of the widening on his website:

.

“The bypass will halve times between Mt Victoria and Lithgow, reduce accidents by two-thirds, and improve freight transport from the Central West .

The bypass will provide a route on the western escarpment more suited to the operation of heavy vehicles than the current Victoria Pass…”

.

[Source:  ‘Bob Debus for Macquarie E-news #2‘,  Bob Debus MP website, ^http://www.bobdebus.com/newsletter2.html  (page since defunct since Debus has resigned from Federal Parliament]

.

The joint Labor-Liberal policy focus on developing road freight and ignoring rail freight is short-sighted 20th Century truck thinking.  But it is also meaning our regional highways are morphing into bigger and faster freight routes – trucking expressways.  Local communities are having to share regional roads with huge trucks.

The trucking industry has allowed itself to become largely contract based where drivers instead of being paid for their time driving are paid on a trip rate.   This means that the more trips a driver makes and the faster the delivery times, the more money the drivers earn.   This work arrangement only encourages truck drivers to drive faster, often too fast, with disastrous consequences.

.

‘It is a statistic that will alarm police and governments dealing with a string of fatal road accidents: almost two thirds of long haul truck drivers interviewed for a national study say their employers pressure them into using unsafe work practices.’

[Source: ‘Truckies pushed into danger zone’, by Andrew West, Sydney Morning Herald, 20100109, p.2]

.

Recent fatalities on NSW roads , including the death of an 11-year-old boy, have sparked a renewed call for action on trucks in the Mountains.

Deputy Mayor Mark Greenhill moved a matter of urgency at Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) meeting 31st January 2012, calling on state and federal government representatives to meet with BMCC to discuss “means and methods by which large trucks can be limited or controlled in terms of behaviour on the Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains” following several shocking incidents in other areas of the state.

Clr Greenhill:  “While the courts have not yet had a chance to determine guilt or otherwise, and I don’t seek to either, recent accidents on NSW roads stand testimony to the awesome power of these trucks,” he said.  “In the Campbelltown area a large truck went over the top of a car and killed three people.  They had no chance. In coastal NSW a boy was killed while sleeping in his house when a large truck ploughed through it.”  

Eleven-year-old boy killed when a B-double crashes through his bedroom

Anyone living within 100 metres of a highway has got cause for concern

.

Penrith residents are mourning the death of Max MacGregor, the 11-year-old killed when a truck loaded with bananas crashed through his bedroom on the state’s mid-north coast.  Max was asleep in the holiday home his family were renting in Urunga when, at 5am on Sunday, a B-double semi collided head-on with a ute before swerving into the holiday home (100 metres from the highway).

[Source:  ‘B-double fatality on mid-north coast brings Penrith family’s holiday to tragic end’, by Emma Schiller, 20120110, Penrith Press, ^http://penrith-press.whereilive.com.au/news/story/penrith-familys-holiday-tragedy/]

.

Clr Greenhill:   “When things go wrong and [trucks] are out of control, they are an uncompromising and deadly weapon.  “In that context, people have been killed in significant numbers in the Blue Mountains. It is a scandal to me that governments are not doing more to control tucks on the highway across the Mountains.  “This should especially be the case while the highway works are under way.”

Clr Greenhill released BMCC figures in September last year that showed trucks were over-represented in local crash statistics and motorists were three times more likely to die in a collision with one.  The statistics showed that from 2005 to 2009, trucks represented nearly a third of all vehicles involving deaths despite being less than a third of vehicles on local roads.  Three per cent of all truck crashes were fatal, compared to one per cent of crashes by all other vehicles, the figures showed.

Clr Greenhill said he had reports from local residents about large trucks “even braving the Old Bathurst Road bends”, and said he would like to see vehicles such as B-doubles off local roads for the time being.’

[Source: ‘Tragedies spark call for action on trucks’, by Krystyna Pollard, 20120201, Blue Mountains Gazette, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/tragedies-spark-call-for-action-on-trucks/2440033.aspx]

.

‘Give Rail a Go’

[Source: Letter to the Editor, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20120201, p4]

.

The tragic accident involving a 25/26m B-double truck at Menangle last week reaffirms the fact that the Great Western Highway, even after the upgrade to Katoomba is completed, will never be suitable for these massive trucks.

Yet the federal government is funding stage one of a multi-billion dollar highway bypass between Mt Victoria and Lithgow, the main purpose being to allow 25/26/30m B-double trucks carrying up to 77 tonnes to use the highway through the Blue Mountains.  Despite overwhelming community  disapproval the federal government is pushing ahead with stage one, a purpose built 25/26/30m B-double bypass at River Lett Hill.

The Blackheath Highway Action Group along with many other Blue Mountains Groups successfully lobbied for an independent review to be conducted on the proposed Mount Victoria to Lithgow highway bypass and the future of the highway west of Katoomba.  In July 2011 the NSW government appointed Evans and Peck, a firm with local knowledge to conduct this review. the review was completed in November so why is the federal government stalling on its public release?

The federal government refuses to fund a $5 million rail study, a key recommendation of the Central West Transport Needs Study.  Rail deserves the same funding, tax incentives and regulatory framework as is currently given to support long haul trucking.

For the sake of safety, local amenity and the long term sustainability it’s time to give rail a fair go and permanently abandon plans to spend billions to turn our highway inot a 25/26/30m B-double freight corridor.’

~ Michael Paag, Chairman, Blackheath Highway Action Group, Blue Mountains

.

‘Head-on crash: driver dies as truck explodes’

[Source: ‘Head-on crash: driver dies as truck explodes’, by Glenda Kwek, 20120124, Sydney Morning Herald, ^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/headon-crash-driver-dies-as-truck-explodes-20120124-1qehm.html]

‘A driver has died after a truck caught fire and exploded following a head-on collision between the tabletop truck and B-double took place about 24 kilometres south of Dubbo at Mountain Creek Road about 4am, emergency services said. The Newell Highway in Dubbo is closed in both directions between Mitchell Highway and Tomingley Road.  The tabletop truck was carrying food and plastic food containers, and the B-double was carrying fertiliser, Ms O’Connor said.’

.

‘Orange truck rollover’

Truck Roll Over at the intersection of Burrendong Way & The Northern Distributor

Orange, Central NSW, 20100629

[Source: ‘Orange truck rollover’ by Steve Smith, Rural Fire Service, Canobolas, ^http://www.canobolas.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=131107]

.

‘Teenage driver killed in truck collision’

[Source: ‘Teenage driver killed in truck collision’ by Ellen Lutton, 20111218, Brisbane Times with AAP, ^http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/teenage-driver-killed-in-truck-collision-20111217-1p0ax.html]

‘One woman was killed and five people were injured in two accidents involving B-double trucks.  Engineers were called to the scene of a dramatic accident on the Gateway Motorway at Boondall in Brisbane about midday yesterday, when a B-double truck exploded after it and a car collided.  The intensity of the explosion and subsequent fire was so severe that parts of the truck fused together,  raising concerns about damage to the road and overpass bridge underneath, a police spokeswoman said.

(Meanwhile) on the Bruce Highway near Rockhampton, a 19-year-old woman died and four people were injured when a car and a B-double truck collided. Police said the station wagon tried to turn into the southbound lanes of the Bruce Highway at Marmor just before 8pm on Friday when the car and truck, which was travelling in the northbound lane, collided.

The 19-year-old driver was killed, while her three female passengers, two aged 19 and one aged 18, were taken to Rockhampton hospital.  The three are in a stable condition.The 65-year-old driver of the B-double was taken to hospital for precautionary treatment and has been released.

.

‘Three trucks involved in two separate highway collisions’

[Source: ‘Three trucks involved in two separate highway collisions’, by Wendy Marshall and Kate Moody, 20100408, Daily Liberal, ^http://www.dailyliberal.com.au/news/local/news/general/three-trucks-involved-in-two-separate-highway-collisions/1797078.aspx]

A 50-year old man was taken to Dubbo Base Hospital with serious injuries after a collision between a B-double truck and a utility vehicle, occurred about 1.15pm on the Newell Highway just south of Gilgandra.

Earlier in the day, in a separate accident, two trucks collided 25 km outside of Dubbo on the Golden Highway.  A UD truck crashed into the back of a Mitsubishi Canter turning right at the Barbigal Road turn off to Wongarbon about 11.40am yesterday.

At the scene, Ballimore RFS deputy captain Col Buckler said the Golden Highway was not currently built for trucks and “most definitively” needed upgrading.

“This is the official B-double road to Newcastle (and) the roads need to be built to carry trucks,” Mr Buckler said.  “It’s time they spent money to make it safer because of the amount of trucks that use it.”

.

‘Fatal crash between car and truck causes explosion, closes Pacific Highway’

[Source: ‘Fatal crash between car and truck causes explosion, closes Pacific Highway’, by Nathan Klein, The Daily Telegraph, 20110405, ^http://www.news.com.au/fatal-crash-between-car-and-truck-closes-pacific-highway/story-e6freuy9-1226033739809?from=public_rss]

Flames … scenes from a fatal crash between a B double truck and a car on the Pacific Highway south of Macksville.

(Photo by Frank Redward)

.

AT least one person has been killed in the fiery collision between a car and a B-double truck at Warrell Creek, about 10km south of Macksville, just before 4am today.

“The B-doubles can’t pass using the diversion as the rail overpass is not suitable for their weight,” a spokesman for the Roads and Traffic Authority told AAP.

The truck involved in the crash was carrying chemicals and exploded in flames on impact, but Fire and Rescue NSW extinguished the blaze.  One person from the car has been confirmed dead, but police say it’s not clear how many people were in the car when it crashed.

.

‘Driver’s lucky escape’

[Source: ‘Driver’s lucky escape’, 20100730, Cowra Guardian, ^http://www.canobolas.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=131113]

The overturned B-Double truck 2km south on the Boorowa Road

.

‘A Canberra man was lucky to escape without serious injury after the B-Double truck he was driving along the Boorowa Rd overturned at 6.15am on Wednesday morning. The 42 year old man lost control of the vehicle 2km south out of town and ran off the road, before the entire truck overturned and spilled out over both lanes of the road.

The overturned truck was carrying furniture and concrete slabs and left more than a dozen slabs scattered over the road. Local resident Russell Denning said he heard a ‘monstrous bang’ when the truck crashed on the road near his home.

Senior Constable John Newton said a lack of attention from the driver appears to be the cause of the accident but police are still investigating.

“At this stage it appears the driver was distracted but there are still final enquiries to be completed,” he said.  “My understanding is the driver will receive an infringement for negligent driving.”

.

There is a ‘baby boomer‘ political penchant to encourage more and more freight to travel by truck, which has dominated Australian Government transport planning for the past sixty years since World War II.

It is a short-term tactical stop-gap measure.  Compared with rail freight, road linehaul for large volumes, over long distances, in the long term is price uncompetitive, and Peak Oil driving up fuel costs will eventually prove road linehaul a strategic economic blunder.

Speeding B-doubles increasingly dominate the highway over the Blue Mountains

‘Woe betide anyone who gets in my way!‘

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain)

.

Yet ‘road-centric’ freight policy dominates the infrastructure planning, simply because it is being driven by the self-centred vested interests of the trucking industry –  influenced (read ‘bought‘) by ongoing substantial monetary donations (read ‘bribes’)  to the electoral campaigns of alternating Labor and Liberal governments.  Visit ^http://democracy4sale.org/ and choose either:

.

Money talks, hence the political penchant to favour road freight.  Whereas rail, entrenched as a government monopoly, has long denied any community say.  Rail has become the Cinderella to Road where only a small honourary volunteer lobby, the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) has not the funds to compete against the collective corporate might of trucking donors.   Read about the ARA:  ^http://www.ara.net.au/site/index.php

The Liberal-Labor Party’s Auslink National Transport Plan since 2004 professed  ‘a new strategic framework for the planning and funding of Australia’s roads and railways to meet long term economic and social needs.’    However, in reality the funding has all but gone into building bigger and more highways.

News is, we are about to enter the year 2012, so we should have advanced somewhat from post-war trucking thinking.

Yet in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, well over $1 billion is forecast to be spent to build a massive highway viaduct and tunnel; simply so that larger and faster trucks can cart freight, fuel and ore over the Blue Mountains and to bypass the village of Mount Victoria.  The fact that a rail line following a similar route exists and has long been used to cart copious quantities of coal over the Blue Mountains, is ignored by a truck-centric political mindset.   The planned Mount Victoria bypass is just one of the multiple ongoing highway widening sections being constructed by Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) contractors over the Blue Mountains and ultimately extending from Penrith in Sydney’s outer metropolitan west to the New South Wales central-west regional town of Orange, 250km away.

Great Western Highway, Wentworth Falls, March 2010

This trucking section just $115,000,000  (pre-blowout estimate)

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain)

.

The widening of the highway has caused the destruction of much native vegetation and has ruined the bushland amenity of the villages and towns of the Central Blue Mountains.  Construction has caused irreversible sediment contamination of many Blue Mountains waterways that drain from the highway ridgeline downstream into the Blue Mountains National Park and World Heritage Area.

Leura, January 2006

– collateral stormwater pollution of downstream creeks to serve the Trucking Expressway

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

.

Since 1996, the widening of the Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains has cost over a billion dollars already.  Yet the highway runs parallel to an existing dual rail line, which for the most part runs right alongside one another.  One justification argued for the massive cost and widening of the highway is to relieve traffic congestion for motorists, but there is a low population base in the Blue Mountains as settlement is confined to the ridgeline over the Blue Mountains where the highway and rail run together.  Steep terrain either side prevent a large population expansion.

Katoomba, May 2009

– collateral vegetation damage to serve the Trucking Expressway

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

.

Before construction began, the only systemic traffic congestion on the highway was at weekends when tourists from Sydney ventured west in their cars.  Spending billions to encourage domestic regional tourism has not been the real justification.  The real justification has been and continues to be to encourage more truck freight along the Great Western Highway.

Yet the public is still waiting for a cost-benefit analysis, a calculation of any return on investment, an end-to-end journey analysis of the freight options, an holistic comparison to rail.
Instead, not only has there been a road-only freight focus, the trucks have got bigger.  Governments are now permitting and encouraging the use of 19 metre ‘B-doubles’ along the highway.  It is only a matter of time before 26 metre B-doubles turn up.  In Victoria they are permitting B-triples – basically road-trains!   Successive Labor and Liberal governments at both national and state level have maintained a truck-centric mindset since the 1980s when the NSW Greiner Government abandoned and close down much of the State’s rail infrastructure, including the closure of  rail depots at Valley Heights and Junee.

This baby boomer political penchant has been encouraged and lauded by baby boomer himself, Bob Debus, long-time Labor politician for the NSW seat of Blue Mountains then the Federal seat of Macquarie, both covering the Blue Mountains region.  Bob Debus has since retired, yet the Labor boomer mindset perpetuates with its truck-centric fervour.

.

“It is with dismay that I watch the Mountains stand by as the RTA fulfills Bob Debus’ promise of an “upgraded” highway (read Trucking Expressway) – by his own admission – built to carry 26m B-double trucks.  The RTA admits that when the western container hubs are finished they will generate 4000 extra B-double movements per day.  Parked end to end they would stretch 102 km – every day!  Goondiwindi, Toowoomba and many other towns don’t allow them but we will see them roaring through every Mountains town – past schools, shops and homes.”

.

~ Dennis Plink, Hartley Vale (letter ‘B-double agenda‘ in Blue Mountains Gazette, 20090304, p.8.

.

The widening of the highway into a trucking expressway is wrecking the Blue Mountains.  And certainly, those trucks have increased – in number, in size and length and in speed.  These bigger, faster trucks are not policed.  They are turning the Great Western Highway into a dangerous death zone.

Speeding B-Double truck overturns on Lapstone Hill

–  at an already widened section of the Trucking Expressway

Zoom, zoom, zoom!

(Photo by Top Notch Video).

 

Last July, on the highway at Lawson near Queens Road, truck driven by a 66-year-old Murrangaroo man collided head-on with an eastbound car trapped a female passenger, followed by a separate collision between a truck and a car near Boland Ave at Springwood.  On Friday, 29th July 2011 on Lapstone Hill the driver of a semi-trailer failed to negotiate a left-hand bend while travelling east and crashed into the concrete median barrier.  The impact caused the truck’s trailer — containing a full load of bark — to tip over the barrier and slide a short distance into the path of a westbound Mitsubishi Lancer, driven by a 30-year-old Hazelbrook woman, who remained trapped before being rushed to Westmead Hospital.  Traffic chaos ensued as all westbound lanes were closed for more than eight hours and one eastbound lane also shut for the clean-up operation. Lapstone Hill is one of the widened sections of the highway.

.

[Source:  ‘Blue Mountains highway mayhem’, by Shane Desiatnik, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20110803, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/blue-mountains-highway-mayhem/2246694.aspx?storypage=0]

.

Increasingly we are reading in local newspapers of road trauma involving trucks.   Across Australia, during the 12 months to the end of March 2009, 248 people died from 229 crashes involving heavy trucks or buses. These included:

• 138 deaths from 124 crashes involving articulated trucks (semi-trailers, B-doubles, B-triples)
• 90 deaths from 86 crashes involving heavy rigid trucks
• 22 deaths from 21 crashes involving buses.

.

[Source: ‘Fatal Heavy Vehicle Crashes Australia: Quarterly Bulletin, January-March 2009’, Summary, ^http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/2009/fhvca_q12009.asp]

.

---

.

Here are just some of the tragic road trauma incidents involving trucks across Australia over the past year:

.

‘Truck burns at Yelgun’ … two days ago!

.

Flames engulf a postal truck at Yelgun on the NSW north coast on December 18, 2011. The driver stopped the truck after noticing smoke pouring from the engine bay. He collected his belongings and departed the vehicle before the flames took hold.

.

[Source: ‘Truck burns at Yelgun”, by Kalindi Starick, ABC, 20111220, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-19/flames-engulf-a-postal-truck-at-yelgun-on-the-nsw-north-coast/3737752]

.

‘Teenage driver killed in truck collision’…two days ago

.

One woman was killed and five people were injured in two accidents involving B-double trucks.

1. Engineers were called to the scene of a dramatic accident on the Gateway Motorway at Boondall in Brisbane about midday yesterday, when a B-double truckexploded after it and a car collided.
2. On the Bruce Highway near Rockhampton, a 19-year-old woman died and four people were injured when a car and a B-double truck collided. Police said the station wagon tried to turn into the southbound lanes of theBruce Highway at Marmor just before 8pm on Friday when the car and truck, whichwas travelling in the northbound lane, collided.  The 19-year-old driver was killed, while her three female passengers, two aged19 and one aged 18, were taken to Rockhampton hospital. The three are in a stable condition. The 65-year-old driver of the B-double was taken to hospital for precautionary treatment and has been released.

.

[Source: ‘Teenage driver killed in truck collision’, by Date: December 18 2011, Ellen Lutton, 20111218, Sydney Morning Herald, ^http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/teenage-driver-killed-in-truck-collision-20111217-1p0ax.html?skin=text-only]

.

‘Truck crash closes Melbourne freeway’

Melbourne’s Monash Freeway is closed in both directions after a semi-trailer crashed into a bridge pylon in the suburb of Mulgrave in the city’s south-east.

.

[Source: ‘Truck crash closes Melbourne freeway’, ABC, 20111213, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-13/truck-crash-closes-melbourne-freeway/3727918]

.

 

‘Truckie quizzed over fatal crash’

 

Two people have died in a crash on the Pacific Highway near Yamba on the NewSouth Wales north coast.

A 62-year-old man and a 51-year-old woman from the Leeton area died when two cars collided about 11:00am (AEDT) today.  A woman and three children who were in the other car have been taken to the Coffs Harbour Hospital. Police say a truck driver who was involved in the accident but failed to stop, was later pulled over at Ballina.  Police are interviewing him. Rebecca Walsh, from the Traffic Management Centre, says the Pacific Highway is closed in both directions and vehicles are being diverted along the Summerland Way at Grafton.

.

[Source: ‘Truckie quizzed over fatal crash’, ABC, 20111111, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-11/truckie-quizzed-over-fatal-crash/3660874]

.

‘Chemical alert after truck rolls in Blue Mountains’

.

Fire crews are battling to contain a major chemical spill on the Great Western Highway at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, after a truck overturned and 20,000 litres of a bright green industrial chemical poured out.

Protective bunds have been built around the spill site to stop the chemical, which is possibly a type of hydraulic fluid, reaching the iconic Leura cascades.  The chemical is described as biodegradable, but it can be a toxic irritant to skins and eyes if touched.

Six fire crews were at the site at 5pm, plus a hazardous materials unit from St Marys, a spokesman for Fire and Rescue NSW said.National Parks rangers, Blue Mountains council staff and fire crews are monitoring the extent of the spilled fluid, some of which entered the drainage system. Council staff have poured gravel around the edge of the spill area to try and contain it. The truck rolled over at about 2pm, and the driver’s condition is unknown, although he or she was understood to not have been trapped in the vehicle.

.[Source: ‘Chemical alert after truck rolls in Blue Mountains’, by Ben Cubby, Environment Editor, 20111026, Sydney Morning Herald, ^http://www.theleader.com.au/news/national/national/environment/chemical-alert-after-truck-rolls-in-blue-mountains/2337200.aspx]

 

.

Editor:  Subsequent reports by a Katoomba resident reported observing the green hydraulic fluid flow in quantities down Govetts Creek.  The contaminant would probably have ended up in the World Heritage Area of the creek within the Grose Valley, but would the RTA, Blue Mountains Council or the National Parks Service care? 

‘.

‘Truck overturns at Tabbimoble’  (Maclean)

.

A woman suffered minor injuries when the truck she was driving overturned on the Pacific Highway at Tabbimoble yesterday morning.

The B-double truck carrying general freight was heading north on the Pacific Highway and was about 2km south of the New Italy complex and 25km north of Maclean when it rolled shortly before 5am.  The 46-year-old woman who was at the wheel of the Volvo semi-trailer complained of back pains and was taken by ambulance to Lismore Base Hospital. The highway was partially blocked for four hours while emergency service cleared away the debris.  The accident occurred on what has become a notoriously black stretch of road where several fatalities have occurred in recent years.
.

[Source: ‘Truck overturns at Tabbimoble’, Northern Star, 20110609, ^http://www.northernstar.com.au/story/2011/06/09/truck-overturns-tabbimoble/]

.

‘Cyclists mowed down by truck’

M4 Motorway (aka Trucking Expressway) on approach to the Blue Mountains

Photo: Adam Hollingworth

.

One man has died after a truck veered into a group of cyclists on the M4 motorway.

Fatigue may have caused a truck driver to veer into the breakdown lane and mow down a group of cyclists, killing one, on the M4 in Sydney’s west.  Police said a group of four cyclists were riding in the breakdown lane of the M4 near the Northern Road overpass at South Penrith when they were struck by a B-double truck about 7.40am today. A male cyclist died and the three others sustained serious injuries. The injured were taken to Nepean Hospital.

A WorkCover spokesman said a preliminary investigation was under way to ascertain whether driver fatigue caused the accident.  Police said the male truck driver was taken to hospital for mandatory blood and urine tests.  Police are investigating the cause of the crash.

.

[Source: ‘Cyclists mowed down by truck’, Sydney Morning Herald sourcing AAP , 20100410, ^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cyclists-mowed-down-by-truck-20100410-rz7v.html]

.

‘Overtaking gamble cost highway driver his life, police believe’

.

One person has died after a truck carrying chemicals exploded after colliding with a car on the NSW north coast this morning.

Police believe a car driver’s early morning gamble in trying to pass a B-double truck on a no-overtaking stretch of the Pacific Highway cost him his life. The sedan was travelling southbound at Warrell Creek just before 4am when it appeared to pull out into the oncoming lane to overtake the truck. It then crashed head-on into a second, northbound, B-double carrying chemicals, Senior Constable Brian Carney of the Mid North Coast Crash Investigation Units aid.

.

[Source: ‘Overtaking gamble cost highway driver his life, police believe’, by Glenda Kwek, 20110405, ^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/overtaking-gamble-cost-highway-driver-his-life-police-believe-20110405-1cz01.html]

.

‘Exploded fuel tanker closes Pacific Highway’

 

The Pacific Highway on the New South Wales north coast will be closed until New Year’s Day while crews clear a fuel tanker that exploded and killed the driver.

The tanker hauling 40,000 litres of fuel overturned and exploded on what is regarded by truckies as a notorious stretch of the highway, near Tintenbar, 10 km north of Ballina.

Authorities have set up a one-kilometre exclusion zone around the burning tankerand more than 100 firefighters equipped with breathing apparatus were sent to the scene.The ambulance service says the truck driver was killed in the blast, while two people have been freed from a nearby car after being trapped when powerlines came down on their vehicle.  The second trailer of the B-double was thrown into a paddock where it leaked fuel into a nearby wetland, and police still cannot get to the cabin of the burnt truck where the driver’s body remains inside.

Another tanker driver, Gary, says the driver is one of their own but they do not know who.”It is sad to be holed up on the side of the road like this. And it’s sad for a driver that’s not going to go home to his family,” he said.

The truck was laden with diesel and unleaded fuel, which has now been mostly contained.  Police say they will not be able to assess the damaged road until the scorched truck is moved, but they expect the Pacific Highway to be closed for the rest of today.  Six other trucks are banked up behind the accident site unable to turn around.

.

[Source: ‘Exploded fuel tanker closes Pacific Highway’, ABC, 20101231, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/31/3104386.htm?site=goldcoast]

.

‘Truck lobby donations seem more important than people’s lives!‘

.

~ Dennis Plink, loc. cit.

Native Angophora 300 years old.

The RTA’s Environment Manager says it’s in the way – Chip it!

– collateral damage for the Trucking Expressway

…note railway line on left  

>:/

.

One by one, roadside vegetation, roadside communities, and villages through the Blue Mountains are capitulating to the New South Wales Government’s agency, the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA).  One diesel-driven programme to convert a regional highway into a dangerously fast heavy trucking expressway.

The RTA is an ‘authority’ alright – a testament to when absolute authority is allowed to overrule local values at any cost.

Leura, Blue Mountains, Australia,  22nd  Dec 2006)

 

(click photo to enlarge)

.

 

RTA rainfall retention gross failure, Leura 30th June 2005

(click photo to enlarge)

.

 

Trees hacked to make way for the RTA expressway, 4th February 2007

(click photo to enlarge)

.

RTA construction sediment down the drain and into Blue Mountains World Heritage creeks, 16th January 2006

(click photo to enlarge)

Forest Giant

.

You have stood there for centuries

arms gaunt reaching the sky

your roots in candence

with the heart beat of the soil

High on the hill, you missed

the faller’s axe and saw

But they destroyed the others

down the slope

and on the valley floor

Now you and I

bleed in sorrow and in silence

for what once had been

while the rapists still

stride across

and desecrate the land.

.

 

~ by Australian poet Jack Davis AO.

---

 

.

The New South Wales Government’s fettish for building expressways to solve the State’s transportation problems – ignores the benefits of rail solutions, ignores the amenity and heritage rights of local communities and is destroying natural heritage.  The NSW Government’s Road and Traffic Authority is arrogantly bulldozing its way through the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, destroying everything in its path.  Its four lane expressway is primarily about encouraging larger and faster trucks through the Blue Mountains.

One of the oldest trees in the Blue Mountains still growing alongside the highway is a mature smooth barked apple tree (Angophora costata) situated in the hamlet of Bullaburra.   The tree is a magnificent surviving remnant of an angophora forest that once dominated the locality.  A qualified level 5 arborist with expertise in Australian native trees in the area has extimated the tree to be well over 200 years old and possibly more than 300 years old.  This means the tree predates colonial settlement in Australia, when only Aboriginal Australians (Gundungurra and Dharug peoples)  roamed the region.

The RTA has targeted the tree to be killed so that it can convert the highway into a B-Double truck expressway.   The expressway under construction through the Blue Mountains feeds traffic into a heavily congested Sydney, so the billions spent to save a few minutes in the journey is lost on reaching Sydney.  When the fuel price reaches $3 a litre, the cost of road freight will make road-carted produce and commodities uncompetitive.  The arrogant NSW Government has no respect for natural  heritage, for local communities and is backward in its 20th Century road-centric thinking.

Bullaburra’s Angophora

[Photo by editor 28th December 2006 – photo free on public domain (click to enlarge).

---

.

---

 

.

Decades of complacency and naivety, or do residents of bucolic Bullaburra simply deserve rights to quiet enjoyment and their buena vista?  The RTA highway juggernaut is at the door.  It won’t just ‘bisect’ the community [‘Anger at RTA‘ BMG 1-Oct-08]; it will permanently segregate it, raze its rural amenity and degrade it into a noisy truck side stop.  Bullaburra is set to receive the same utility vision imposed on Blaxland and so many other Mountains communities.

I too attended the August township meeting at Bullaburra’s Progress Association hall, not as a Bullaburra resident, nonetheless as a Mountains resident.   At the packed meeting, Bullabarrans unanimously endorsed an alternative plan asking the RTA to accommodate local linkages across what will become another four-lane barrier dividing a local community.  Personal experience in dealing with the RTA at Leura, Medlow Bath and Katoomba affirms it doesn’t listen or care.  It has just plundered the rare 1820s convict road at Leura, hardly pausing its schedule.

The RTA’s massive budget is only limited by political will. It stands to be key recipient of the new Building Australia Fund of $22,000,000,000 then claims it can’t afford community bridges.  Be clear, the RTA’s mandate for ‘progress’ is to build more expressways.  Driven by road lobbyists, the RTA is extending greater Sydney’s swelling suburbia like Roman legions extended empire.  ‘Few understand how much transport influences land use patterns.  Transport leads land use.  Once an expressway or railway is built, it is easy to change the zoning and development laws to increase the population along the corridor.’  [Frank Sartor, SMH 29-Sep-08, p11].  RTA performance is measured by it maximising road ‘ride quality’ and minimising ‘travel times.’

The RTA juggernaut will remain unstoppable so long as local townships rely upon single-handed last ditch battles.  Our elected Blue Mountains councillors should be standing up for the people of Bullaburra and important natural heritage.

[by editor, first published in the Blue Mountains Gazette (BMG), 8 Oct 2008]

Great Western Highway at nearby Leura, 20th December 2006

Photo by Ivan Jeray.