Veteran owner-operator Chris Duncan has slammed the general road infrastructure in Queensland and challenged Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to travel on them for a day as a passenger in a truck.
“Queensland roads need a major reconstruction programme and if the Premier was in a truck she would experience it for herself,” he said.
Duncan runs Sensational Transport and has been driving since 1985. He drives a 2019 Coronado with a 2021/22 tri dolly and a road train set of belly dumpers, carting grain – and is currently busy doing harvest.
He says urgent work is needed west of Toowoomba on every major highway for at least 1000 kilometres.
“The potholes and failed infrastructure is only being Band-Aid’ed. This procedure is only adding to the damage of vehicles,” Duncan added.
“It also has the potential to cause fatal accidents. People who travel these goat tracks everyday believe if it’s not in the greater Brisbane area we get no major allocation of funding.”
This angry driver wondered what it would take to have this rectified.
“We have to have roadworthy vehicles to drive on unroadworthy roads. The hypocrisy of this anomaly is getting out of hand,” he said.
Duncan also slammed high registration and fuel costs for truckies.
“Not much is allocated to fix roads. Is there a procedure for fixing this? What is it?” he asked.
A Transport and Main Roads spokesperson told ABC News recently that nine natural disasters had affected Queensland roads during 2021-22, with 66 of 77 local government areas receiving financial relief measures.
“The damage assessment task is massive,” the spokesperson said.
“Due to the widespread and severe nature of the damage, a significant program of reconstruction works will be required over the next two years.”
The greatest damage was caused by the south-east Queensland floods in late February and March 2022, which included many major landslips.