A truck driver travelling along the Barrier Highway got the fright of his life last night when a golf club was launched at his windscreen.
Despite the impact shattering both the right and left sides of the windscreen, thankfully he was unharmed.
Josh Rigney, 38, is based in Brisbane and works for Tezzza’s Transport, pulling grain tippers – and travelling all over the country.
He explained he was at the tail-end of a three-week trip when the incident occurred on at Wilcannia in north-western New South Wales.
“It’s really disappointing. I’m just out here trying to do my job and I’m just glad I didn’t have my kids with me because they would have been covered in glass,” said the father of four. “I often take my young fella out with me for a drive on the school holidays.”
Josh the incident occurred at about 10.30pm last night. “I was coming east into Wilcannia, on the Barrier Highway. I’d come from Kapunda, about an hour north of Adelaide, heading towards Townsville. There’s an oval on the right-hand side and then a butcher shop – I think they came from in between there.
“The impact made a hell of a racket – and I didn’t see it coming, there was no-one around. I was just pacing along and the next thing I knew, there was this big bang and I thought, what the hell was that!”
He called the police to report the incident and praised the young officers who attended.” “Those two young fellas were really good, they were probably more pissed off than I was. There’s been deliberate action to have a bigger police presence in the area in recent times and it has made quite the difference,” explained Josh.
“They were literally just up the road, so if had happened 30 seconds before they probably would have spotted it. I told them I was surprised they didn’t hear me going off on the two-way!”
Josh has been around transport his whole life, as his father owned a workshop, and he’s a been a full-time truckie for over 10 years – and in that time, he says he’s never encountered anything like this.
“We all know Wilcannia has a bad reputation, but I’ve never had an issue. You hear all the stories of blokes who’ve had boulders piffed at them, blokes who’ve been bashed and all of that, but I’ve never had a drama. This is the first time.”
Josh explained that along with shattering the windscreen of the truck, it also put a few scratches on the bonnet.
“I’m in a T909 and it’s only 15 months old. It’s obviously going to need fixing. But for now I’ve had to tape up the windscreen and keep going, and then they’ll get it fixed when I get back into Brisbane.
“I was hoping to get back home by Wednesday night/Thursday morning so I could make it to my son’s footy match but after also blowing a steer this morning, now I’ll be flat out getting home before Friday.”
And this incident has come at a time when Josh has been busy working the harvest too. “I’m flat out with harvest at the moment. This is coming up on three weeks into this trip and I’ve done some serious miles in that time – it’d be upwards of 15,000 kilometres in the last three weeks.”
Josh is currently travelling in a double road train set-up and sometimes does up to three trailers, depending on the run.
Once he arrives back to Brisbane, Josh expects the truck to be off the road for at least a day and a half, so it can be repaired.