Regional fuel transporter Lowes Petroleum has acknowledged its best and safest drivers through its annual professional driver awards.
Driver David Hull from the Townsville depot was named the winner for region one, Alex Connell from the Brisbane depot took the award for region two, Daryl Neal from the Newcastle depot won for region three, Mark Thomson from the Shepparton/Melbourne depot was awarded for region four and Craig Hall from Burnie, Tasmania won the award for region five.
Lowes Petroleum delivers millions of litres of fuel across the country each year. This is the second year it has acknowledged its top drivers through these awards.
Lowes Petroleum’s general manager of health, safety, security and environment (HSSE) Bernie Morris said the awards were launched last year to salute the professionalism of the company’s drivers.
Morris said that while every driver made a commitment to best-practice standards, it was important to recognise those going above and beyond in their day-to-day deliveries.
He added that the winners exhibited a professional attitude and behaviours in every aspect of their job. They are highly regarded amongst peers and customers and are drivers who step beyond their duties, as a driver and for the business.
“Every day we are receiving comments from customers and the public to ‘stop and go’ traffic people about our driver’s professionalism and the awards are a perfect way to acknowledge this,” he said. “Often there’s a perception that driving on country roads has less risk: that perception is wrong.
“Most of us go to work each day knowing that our immediate workspace is a safe environment for us to work in. Our drivers don’t have that luxury: everyday road conditions, the weather, vehicle issues and the general public create dangerous work environments.
“Our drivers make hundreds of risk decisions daily to ensure that they, and others around them, remain safe. These awards were brought into play to recognise the drivers who do that the best.”
Morris said the winning drivers came from across the whole business. While some people believed the awards would go to the drivers of the big tanker road trains, one of the winners was in fact the driver of a smaller Lubes delivery truck.
“This year we received significantly more nominations than we did last year,” he said. “We assess the nature of the nominations around customer service, the care drivers showed for their vehicles, the commitment to their depots and to the team they work with. We also have made sure that these were also the safest drivers we have.
“We assessed this by referring to drive cam alerts, to logbook and fatigue breaches and incidents like crossovers and speeding, so we believe the drivers awarded this year are, in fact, the very best drivers we have in our business.”