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

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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…

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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/]

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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].

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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/]

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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]

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Sand Truck smashes into Adelaide house 2011

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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.

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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]

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

Artist’s scary impression…more trucking expressways.

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Further Reading:

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[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)

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

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~ the more lanes, the faster they hurtle!

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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]

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

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May 2013:  B-Double Driver Falls Asleep

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<<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.>>

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[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]

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[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?

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

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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.]

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

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May 2013:  Truck kills a Woman in her Car

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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]

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<<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.

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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.>>

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

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May 2013:  Truck Drivers do Hit and Run

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<<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!]

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<<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!]

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

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B-Doubles Out of Control

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<<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.>>

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[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]

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May 2013:   Woman dies in crash involving truck

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<<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.

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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.>>

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

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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/]

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Apr 2013:  Truck catches Fire

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<<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.

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[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]

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Apr 2013:  Plastics truck explodes on highway

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Truck explodes on Hume Freeway near Berrima

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<<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.>>

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[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]

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

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Nothing Left

Pacific Highway near Ulmarra 

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<<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…>>

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[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/]

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

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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.>>

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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).>>

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[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]

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Mar 2013:  Two Escape Sydney Truck Fire

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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]

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<<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.”

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[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]

 

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

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

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<<..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.

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[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]

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

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<<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.

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[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]

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

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B-Double rollover on the Cunningham Hwy at Maryvale

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<<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.

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

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Feb 2013: Truck fire in Sydney Harbour Tunnel

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<<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.>>

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[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]

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Oct 2012:  Multiple truck crash on Sydney’s M4

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A crash on the M4 freeway closed both lanes of traffic

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

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<<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.

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[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]

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April 2012:   Truck on Fire on Hume Highway

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

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<<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.>>

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[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/]

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Dec 2011:   Rollover of B-Double carting wool

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B-Double Rolled on Ballimore Highway near Dubbo

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

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[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 

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

[Photo by ABC News]

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<<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.>>

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

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

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

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<<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.>>

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[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]

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Further Reading:

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

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[2]  >Threats from Roadmaking – Articles

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Footnote

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

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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)

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

[Image construct via Google Maps, before the crash]

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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

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[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/]

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The Trucking Menace is out of control!

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The trunk of a healthy 300+ year old Angophora lies beside the highway in Bullaburra

Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia

[Photo by our investigator, 20130403, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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Government destruction of Bullaburra has begun.  Last Monday, April Fools Day 2013, they came and killed Bullaburra’s magificent Angophora to make way for a trucking expressway through the village.  But who are the fools who destroy our native heritage?

To many perhaps this is just another tree.  Some people value trees and ecology.  Others have deep value for wildlife and other animals, especially their pets.  Many people value where they live and grow very attached to where they live for reasons that can seem difficult for others to appreciate.  But it is the existence rights of species that humans ignore besides their own self-serving interests.  Male Baby Boomers remain the most extreme in their self-righteousness, and those in government prescribe utilitarian dictates over the rights of the few.

Elie Wiesel, novelist, political activist, and Humanities Professor at Boston University, has said that the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.  The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death.

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Witnessing an old friend being slaughtered

[Photo by our investigator, 20130403, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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A native tree that once was part of an Angophora (Sydney Redgum) forest, existed way back when the three explorers Lawson, Wenthworth and Blaxland crossed the Blue Mountains in 1813.  They would have passed right past this tree.  Two years later road builder William Cox similarly would have laid his rough track, and in 1836 Major Mitchell upgrading the road too would have passed by this tree.  For nearly two centuries travellers have passed by this tree, most probably not even giving it a glance.   Now it is gone and the opportunity to respect and appreciate this remnant of natural heritage has gone with it.

 

We tried to save you

Campaign to Save Bullaburra’s 300 year old Angophora back in 2008

(Blue Mountains Gazette, 20081203)

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Last January, spiteful people set fire to two Hermmansburg ghost gums made famous in Albert Namatjira’s landscape paintings.  In 2006, Barcaldine’s famous ghost gum, ‘the tree of knowledge’ was poisoned.  Just last week an old gum tree in the Rylstone public school was poisoned.  Human hate for native trees has pervaded Australian colonising society since Cook landed at Camp Cove and chopped down trees for firewood.

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Tree of Knowledge, Barcaldine, Queensland

As it used to be, before it was poisioned.

[Source: Queensland Historical Atlas, 1991,

^http://www.qhatlas.com.au/photograph/tree-knowledge-barcaldine-1991]

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A local arborist with expertise in native trees of the Blue Mountains including Angophoras, estimated in 2007 that the Bullaburra Angophora to have been over 300 years old.  It was still healthy and still growing as confirmed by the solid core of the severed trunk.

Now it lies like a dead harpooned whale like roadkill beside the highway, where it has stood all those decades.

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A dendrochronology of more than 300 annual growth rings.

The tree was healthy to the core.  It was not rotting. It was not diseased.

It was just in the way of someone’s trucking interpretation of ‘progress’.

[Photo by our investigator, 20130403, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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Significant Tree #29

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This Angophora was recognised as a ‘Significant Tree‘ on the local Blue Mountains Council’s Significant Tree Register back on 17th July 1985 and formally adopted on 21st June 1988, at the time of Australia’s Bicentennary.

No opposition against killing the tree was communicated by the Blue Mountains Council to the RTA-come-RMS.  Indeed, this is one of many such ‘significant trees’ that have been killed for development convenience in recent years. Clearly, the Blue Mountains Council’s Significant Tree Register has become disingenuous and lying greenwash.

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Bullaburra’s Angophora, in memoriam

Registered Significant Tree #: 29
Botanical Name: Angophora costata  (Smooth Barked Apple, Red Gum)
Location: Great Western Highway Bullaburra, Opp. Lot 173, DP13407

[Photo by Editor, 20071028, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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Trucking Expressway

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The death of the Angophora is the begining of the end of Bullaburra.  The highway village is set to become a siding for four-laned trucking expressway so that B-double trucks can rumble 24/7 through Blue Mountains towns and villages, nudging 90kph on cruise control.

Bigger Trucks demanding bigger roads

[Photo by Editor, 20090531, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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The rural amenity of this highway village is to be lobotomised into a mono-design urban landscape taking on the same monotonous blandness as any other expressway in the country. The government euphemises this as:

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“to achieve greater consistency in the design of the Blue Mountains area to achieve a simple and unified design of the highway and its elements.”

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The fundamental basis for the government’s conversion of this regional highway into a national trucking expressway route is simply “to improve travel times” for trucks, so that more and larger trucks are encouraged to use the route.

The Bullaburrra section is to cost taxpayers $80 million and will see 3.6 hectares of native bushland destroyed on the basis that the vegetation “is already dissected and fragmented“.  So it seems that moral relativism allows for wedge development just like a little bit of corruption doesn’t hurt anyone.

But as if the twisted morality isn’t bad enough.  It is the greenwashing that really twists the knife in.  The RTA-come-RMS in its Review of Environmental Effects maintains that the expressway development aims:

“to protect the natural systems and ecology of the corridor”

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[Source:  ‘The Great Western Highway Upgrade – Bullaburra East, Review of Environmental Effects’, Vol.2, July 2009, Roads and Traffic Authority, New South Wales Government, p.2.]

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However, the expressway development will simply result in the heart of rural Bullaburra being ripped out and the amenity reduced to a trucking siding adopting a benale concrete landscape akin to the bland urban character of an upper Blaxland, and mirroring what has happened to nearby lobotomised Lawson.

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“It’s just really tragic after all the horrors of the last 1,000 years we can’t leave behind something as primitive as government sponsored execution.”

~ Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, when introducing a bill that would end the death penalty on the Federal level.

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Progress of Hate

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Under Australia’s Federal Auslink Policy the national freight thinking is road-centric and all about replacing real trains with road trains.  Behind this trucking expressway scheme is a powerful and influential trucking lobby group who donate generously to the political parties that control the New South Wales Government, and various politicians including retired Blue Mountains MP Bob Debus, who has long been a driver of this trucking expressway.

The New South Wales Government department behind this scheme is the RTA-come-RMS (Roads and Maritime Services).  In 2007, the then General Manager – Environmental Branch, Ms Erica Adamson, claimed that to retain the Angophora consequential loss of tree roots and pruning would instigate the decline of the tree.  “For road construction and safety reasons the tree will have to be removed…to maintain sight lines (for speeding trucks).”

“It’s called progress” they say.  For the Blue Mountains it is being inflicted at any cost – economic, social, environmental.

The idea of ‘progress‘ is an economic one that was borne out of Western 18th Century hard-nosed Industrial Revolution and perhaps extending back to the 16th Century Enlightenment of Europe and perhaps even back to when the Iron Age triumphed so aggressively and effectively over the Bronze Age.

Perhaps progress remains subjective only with the progressor who doggedly in his pursuit rough shods over others in the process.  Perhaps the idea of progress is a myth.  Is the human condition better off as a result?  Are we advancing as a society by rough shodding over others and over what is left of Ecology and Nature?   The philosophy of ‘^Deep Ecology‘ posits otherwise.

Progress of Hate

[Photo by our investigator, 20130403, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.  If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

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Related reading on this website:

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[1]   >Threats from Road Making – articles

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[2]   >Bushphobia – a case of deluded convenience

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Crushed between two large trucks on the Great Western Highway

  Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia

[Photo by Top Notch Video, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20130213, p.9]

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The Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains west of Sydney is becoming an increasingly dangerous thoroughfare as the New South Wales Government steadily transforms it into a faster expressway designed for larger trucks and increasing the B-Double menace.

This highway is a regional route to towns like Bathurst and Orange and passes through many small towns and villages.  Yet the trucking lobby and State Government don’t care about local safety or amenity.  The wider and faster expressway is just carved through each town and village in turn, preventing safe crossing, dividing communities and prioritising the commercial imperatives of express road freight over human lives.

Hardly a week goes by without the local newspaper, the Blue Mountains Gazette, reporting a serious collision along our Great Western Highway.

All too frequently such collisions occur on the already widened expressway sections that are sold to the community as ‘safety upgrades’.   All too frequently across the State and the country, we read about collisions on these expressways that have involved trucks – trucks speeding, trucks tailgating, trucks exceeding weight limits, drunk or drugged up truck drivers under the pressure of unrealistic delivery deadlines all hours of the day and night.

Local people who use these regional roads are now forced to confront larger and faster trucks, and B-doubles with trailers, hurtling along nudging above increased speed limits brought in by government planners.   Ordinary road users are now risking the lives of themselves and their passengers as they are forced to increasingly share regional roads with the B-Double Menace.

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Get out of my way! 

I’m on an unrealistic deadline!

(The B-Double Menace)

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Just over a week ago, on the Great Western Highway at Blackheath, a Sydney woman driving in her car mid Wednesday morning toward the town of Orange braked behind a large truck that suddenly stopped on the highway in front of her.   She glanced in the rear vision mirror only in horror to see a second large truck bearing down on her at speed.   It slammed in to the back of her car, pushing her car compressed up against the large truck in front of her.

The woman, 34 year-old Sarina Heta was sandwiched in contorted metal that was her car, unable to escape and lucky to be alive.  Her wrecked car, a Kia Rio sedan, is shown in the top photo.

Ms Heta was trapped in her car in a state of shock for 45 minutes until rescued by and the Fire Brigade and paramedics.

<<Blue Mountains emergency services were called to the scene about 10.50am where they found the woman trapped in her car. She was treated by ambulance officers while other emergency services workers spent an anxious 45 minutes working to safely remove her from the vehicle.  Ms Heta was flown by helicopter to Westmead Hospital where she was in a stable condition and already reflecting on her miraculous survival.>>

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“I remember just taking a big breath and taking the steering wheel and actually thinking it was over for me.  I was a lucky girl that day with a group of angels looking over me.  I just keep thinking, I must have done something good, or I have to do something amazing now I have another chance.”  said Ms Heta.

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Ed:  This poor woman. It is plainly unjust that ordinary road users should have to experience life-threatening encounters with dangerous trucks.

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• So why did the first truck stop on the highway?
• More importantly, why didn’t the second truck stop safely?
• Was the truck driver distracted talking on his mobile phone as many of these drivers frequently are observed, without being caught?
• Is the bastard still driving?

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There are few if any police patrolling the highway.  There is only one speed camera on the Great Western Highway and that is at Warrimoo over 30km away. These truck drivers are cowboys racing through the Blue Mountains as if they’re on a raceway and they couldn’t care less about any other road users.  Other road users just get in their way.

Ordinary Blue Mountains road users have constantly complained about truck driver behaviour along the Great Western Highway; yet the State Government, local politicians and the police do nothing.

One resident wrote on social media:  “The trucks very rarely travel at 60km through the town. . . There is no point trying to out run them as they are more powerful and you end up exceeding the speed limit,” wrote Alex Michie.  “The road is fine . . . it’s the halfwits driving on it that is the problem,” wrote Josh Steel.

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[Source:  Lucky escape at Blackheath reignites highway safety debate’, 20130213, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, page 9, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/1298298/lucky-escape-at-blackheath-reignites-highway-safety-debate/]

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A Trucking Expressway Government Mindset

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Many of these large B-Double trucks cart sand, soil or rock into Sydney from quarry sites located in the Central West region of New South Wales.  But when they are empty travelling out of Sydney, they rip along speeding over 90kph and tail-gating at all hours, menacing other road users.

A root cause of the truck speeding problem is that the truck drivers themselves are not paid by the hour.  The transport industry remuneration structure has long surrendered Award-based pay for individual pay contracts.  Truck drivers get paid not an hourly rate, but by the trip rate. The more trips a driver does, the more the driver gets paid, so speed has become a motivator for more pay.

This may make the job costing easier for the company accountants of the trucking companies or the corporate clients of the trucking companies, but it encourages unreasonably fast driving incentives which has dangerous implications for all road users, and the government allowing this must be held largely responsible and culpable.

Past local politician for the Blue Mountains, Bob Debus, approved hundreds of millions be spent transforming the regional highway into a trucking expressway a decade ago.  This remains the State Government’s agenda.

Yet the Great Western Highway passes through twenty-one local communities over the Blue Mountains between the end of the M4 Motorway in outer Sydney and Lithgow, a road distance of 87km.

1. Lapstone
2. Glenbrook
3. Blaxland
4. Warrimoo
5. Valley Heights
6. Springwood
7. Faulconbridge
8. Linden
9. Woodford
10. Hazelbrook
11. Lawson
12. Bullaburra
13. Wentworth Falls
14. Leura
15. Katoomba
16. Medlow Bath
17. Blackheath
18. Mount Victoria
19. Hartley
20. Little Hartley
21. Old Bowenfels

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Many of these communities also have families and in many cases local schools.  Many of these communities have their own 60kph maximum speed zones to allow for local street access, local traffic and indeed pedestrians of all ages.    Many school crossings and school 40kph speed zones exist along the Great Western Highway.   The encouragement of a 80kph trucking expressway transformation of the Great Western Highway is incongruent with its local use.

In some cases the government’s trucking expressway transformation of the highway has completely divided communities to the extent that there is no sign that a community even exists.  When it was their turn, the communities of Lapstone and Linden succumbed entirely to the expressway imperative.  Other communities are denied local vehicle access or access that is so contorted as to have made the local communities second rate citizens, like Warrimoo and now parts of Wentworth Falls.

When the expressway juggernaut came through town in Leura, Medlow Bath and Katoomba eight years or so ago, local properties were inundated by flash flooding caused directly by redirected highway stormwater design.

Recently Lawson and Hazelbrook have been witness to the bulldozing of heritage and amenity as the four lanes lobotomised their villages into a 80kph Blaxland byway.

As the expressway juggernaut arrives it carves through more native vegetation and habitat.

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Destruction in progress at Boddington Hill in early 2012, east of Wentworth Falls

Great Western Highway, Blue Mountains, NSW

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

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Bullaburra residents sensibly got involved in the expressway process early, drafted their own re-design for their community and thought that had a special deal with the RTA-come-RMS.  But although the clever Government consultants have listened, the RTA has got its way.   The trucks will be able to set their cruise control to nudge 85kph through this bucolic Bullaburra..

The trucking companies would like to minimise their transit times across the Blue Mountains, simply because in transport, time is money.

A recent trucking strategy has been to introduce bigger trucks so that more can be carted by each driver.    This is why the Blue Mountains has seen a steady increase in B-Doubles – rigid trucks with a bogie trailer.  On designated motorways in New South Wales, these B-Doubles are 26 metres long.  In western Victoria and South Australia, B-Triples have been allowed, basically equating to the Road Trains of Outback Australia.

Also, most of these newer trucks have more powerful turbo diesel engines so that they can travel faster with the increased gross weights.

The 87km Blue Mountains section of the Great Western Highway lies between the end of the M4 Motorway at Emu Plains where trucks can sit on 110kph and Lithgow, where the highway opens up to 100kph passing by very few communities.

It is this populated variable speed 87km section that is the bane of the trucking companies and so their lobbying target to government to transform it into a trucking expressway to serve them.  If the designated average travel time over the 87km Blue Mountains section is say 1 hour and 20 minutes, the cumulative billions being spent to transform the Great Western Highway into a trucking expressway could at the absolute best expect to save just 20 minutes truck transit time.   This is even if all traffic lights and pedestrian crossings were removed so that the trucks could cruise on 90kph, through this Blue Mountains section.

Cost benefit analysis?  Has it been done by anybody?

The proposed Mount Victoria bypass is set to cost over a billion dollars alone, to save perhaps just 2 minutes truck transit time.

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The crazy planning Elephant in the Room that has been ignored in the wake of all these billions, is that once the trucks arrive in metropolitan Sydney, their transit times blow out in the congestion.

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Our Editor wrote the following article which was published in the local Blue Mountains Gazette 7th January 2009.  It is pertinent, because within a 100 metres or so of the truck collision that impacted Sarina Heta this month, another woman, Blackheath resident Betty Dowdell, was not so lucky.

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Faster trucks Bob?

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<<Blackheath resident Betty Dowdell was hit and run by a semi last month less than a truck length from Blackheath’s main intersection [SMH 16/12/08].  On 18^th November a B-double caused a pile up on Richmond Road.  Drug utensils were allegedly found in the driver’s compartment [SMH 19/11/08].

On 24 July around 3pm between Lawson and Bullaburra a Volvo B-double driver “lost control of the vehicle and collided head-on with a white light goods van heading west.” The 56-year-old Leura man driving the van was killed. [BMG 30/7/08].

On 3 October at 9.15am, a motorcyclist collided head-on with a semi-trailer on the wrong side of the Bells Line of Road at Mt Tomah [AAP 4/10/08].  On 29 March last year, a semi driver over-turned at Mt Vic.  In 2004, on 25 February at 11pm a semi laden with mixed chemicals failed to negotiate a sharp bend at the bottom of Mt Vic pass.  The truck rolled, killing the driver and spilling a load of hydrochloric acid and herbicide.

I recall driving back from Mt Tomah a few years ago with my family. An oncoming truck was well over the double lines and I was forced onto the gravel shoulder to avoid a head-on.

Speeding traffic is making our two highways more dangerous.  Highway patrols and speed cameras are almost non-existent in the Mountains.  Many collisions occur on sections of the highway that are already four lanes.  Government policies are encouraging more, and bigger trucks to drive faster while rail options remain ignored.

Why is our federal member Bob Debus MP encouraging faster trucks through the Mountains?>>

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Just because highways are transformed into expressways, doesn’t make them safer.

This is the six-laned M4 motorway at Emu Plains. 

A truck driver not concentrating, wiped out and killed cyclists out for a ride in the cycle lane.

10th April 2010. 

May they rest in peace.

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Footnote

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On the other side of the M4 motorway from the above cyclist collision at Emu Plains, but this time heading east, a cyclist in the cycle lane was hit and killed by a car.

Blue Mountains resident, Marc Simone, 43, was cycling in the cycle lane at 7:30am Saturday 16th February 2013, when an incompetent P-plater veered and hit and killed Marc.

Marc had been training to cycle over 3,900 km to Darwin to raise money for Mission Australia.

[Source:  ‘Marathon Mission Ends in Tragedy’, 20130220, journalist B.C. Lewis, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, p.1]

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[Ed:  Any highway, motorway or road that has ‘cycle lanes’ are death traps unless there is a concrete barrier keeping reckless and incompetent vehicle drivers killing cyclists.]

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