A NSW truck driver, who works just three days a week, was fined $454 for a “minor” logbook technicality.
“I got done on Tuesday afternoon,” says the driver, who in his 30 years behind the wheel has never received so much as a speeding fine. “He’s gone through my logbook and said he could see that I have all of my breaks and everything but because it is outside of that 24-hour period, I was half an hour over.”
The driver contacted Big Rigs this week and expressed his sentiment towards the incident. “I was fined for ‘minor risk’. Fair enough if I was actually doing something wrong all the time, but I just can’t comprehend how they’ve got me. Every driver is different in what they do.”
The driver works from Sunday to Tuesday and is off for the rest of the week. He drives for only an hour and a half on a Sunday to get loaded up, has an 8.5 hour break and then does 11 hours on the Monday – which brings him to 12.5 hours within the 24-hour period, and that’s what has run him into hot water.
To add, he also has a 16 hour break before setting off again on a Tuesday.
The driver was told by the officer that he should just go out earlier on the Sunday. “But these are the hours that I’ve got to get the job done. That’s why I go on the Sunday and get loaded up. If I wasn’t having my breaks, I would accept it. I have that big amount of rest in between. What do they want me to do? Stop when I’m only 30 minutes from the depot? Am I supposed to stop on the side of the road for hours just so I can then drive the last half hour? When you’re out in the bush, half an hour is nothing.
“He even went back through and checked my logbook and said he could get me for heaps of them, because that’s what I do every week.”
The driver has been in contact with Revenue NSW and plans to dispute the fine. “I’ve never had a fine in 30 years – no speeding or anything,” he says. “They can see I still have all of my breaks.”