I’ve been in the industry now for 27 years. I’ve lost a couple of mates, and a son-in-law to this industry. The last five to six years have been the worst I’ve ever seen.
Not only because of the international drivers, but also the home-grown; five to six years in the job thinking that they know the LOT! The latter are what’s fuelling the racism in this industry.
We are supposed to be professionals in what we do. I’ve worked with many ‘internationals’ and had quite a few that were extremely good at their job and also very good mates.
Yes, there may be more trucks on the road nowadays, but the licensing requirements also got harder. So, how do some of these blokes, (Aussies) included get their licence?
Why do 30-plus year-olds need to act like two-year-olds on the UHF? No matter how long we’ve been on the road, no matter how much we ‘think’ we know, we can be certain that there is much more to learn.
The old-timers worked this out well before these ‘new age’ drivers. A huge percentage of these ‘new age’ drivers have seen how it was back then (probably streamed it on YouTube) And try to live it out on the highway and get it so wrong!
We helped each other. Something that never happens now, and if it does, it’s a 60-70-year-old bloke pulling up and fixing the issue.
No matter the nationality. With no thanks, no Facebook posts saying how awesome they were because they just stopped to ask if they had enough water. As ‘professionals’ we should be helping, teaching others, no matter their nationality.
In saying this, we have these ‘new age cocks’ that don’t care whether it’s an Aussie or otherwise and would rather just record it on their phone and post it to multiple sites instead of getting out off their ‘throne’ and helping, teaching, showing a better, sometimes easier way.
We, as ‘professionals’, need to step up.
Start helping the new guys: brown, yellow, black, grey. And whatever colour you want. Don’t just sit back making a TikTok about it – go and give a hand.