Cracks in Queensland’s new hardline border controls are already beginning to show, says interstate truckie Richard Walker.
Earlier this morning, just six hours after the new testing requirements for truckies came into force, Walker said the Gold Coast Highway checkpoint “failed big time”.
“It was mainly because of the car drivers but at around 7am transport and police were overwhelmed with traffic and sent everyone through without checking,” Walker told Big Rigs.
“I laughed and cried, mainly because Gold Coast car drivers are shit, and some were going Kamakazi.”
Walker later wrote a formal complaint to Queensland Health.
“These rules and checks for hardworking people are adding hours onto our fatigue time, risking not only our lives but others for a pointless exercise of power by the state governments,” Walker writes.
“If anyone has tested positive in a ‘truck’ I doubt it would be any larger than a HR.
“A couple of idiots in a removal van and a food distribution (LR) vehicles have but we (real truck drivers) do not have contact with the general public.”
Later today, after extensive lobbying by the Queensland Trucking Association, the the Queensland Freight Protocol was updated, so heavy vehicle drivers in a truck can use the Border Zone Entry X Pass to enter Queensland if they are EITHER a Queensland resident or a border zone resident entering ONLY from the NSW Border Zone and have not been in a hotspot in the past 14 days and ARE NOT not required to comply with the mandatory requirements.