We would like to wish all our drivers a safe and happy Christmas. Also, we hope that the families of the drivers have them home safe with them at this time.
To the drivers that will be out there spinning the wheels over this time, not being with immediate family – thank you and we will raise a glass to you all.
Those of you who will be out there don’t forget to look at the ‘Adopt a Truckie’ Facebook group where other trucking families offer their homes and Christmas dinner to you.
It’s been a shit year on the highway with more than we would like now driving heaven’s highway and those that either can no longer drive the highways or are still recuperating.
With 112 road deaths involving heavy vehicles for the period January to October 2025, with a minimum of 32 of those being truck drivers, it is a sobering thought on the safety of our loved ones – both physically and mentally.
These numbers were worked out by taking the stats from BITRE fatalities for 2025, with the following criteria:
1. the driver over 20 years of age (can’t be a truck driver under that age) (the youngest person identified was 29
2. pedestrians, motor cyclists, pedal cyclists or unknown road user excluded
3. single vehicle crash involving heavy rigid or articulated truck
4. multi vehicle crash involving heavy rigid and articulated truck)
New Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL), but what has really changed? What has any of the changes this year done for the DRIVERS… apart from:
• increasing stress with fatigue management compliance (not fatigue management itself)
• increased fining, despite the rhetoric of the regulator being to “educate and inform”
• inconsistent enforcement practices between the “authorised officers” under the HVNL
• fines for non-offences (example the driver allegedly fined for having an empty coffee cup in the passenger side of the cab),
• increased surveillance for everything,
• minimal support and decreased availability at rest areas
• misuse of truck only parking areas – to be fair, some transport companies (large and small) use the rest areas as their personal holding yard to the detriment of those that really need to use the spaces to rest
• increased pressure to do more work for less money because other businesses doing sham contracting
• more dangerous, ill-trained drivers coming at them on the roads
• more red tape than ever before with the driver being the end of the line (or front of the line, depending on how you look at it) for legal ramifications if something goes wrong
• increased resentment by other road users towards the drivers for taking up too much space, or the wrong space
• Ongoing enforcement operations targeting the popular tropes of speeding and fatigue compliance offences despite the evidence that distractions and following too close to other vehicles are the cause of most collisions.
And now a new option for a personal opinion, by someone on the side of the road, that can determine whether someone is “fit to drive” with no mechanism to appeal in a timely manner.
So, more forms to sign, more gadgets in the truck, more laws to stuff up or misinterpret, only good thing is some minor fines have dropped in cost.
The funny part, well not so funny part, is that very little has really changed for the betterment of the driver.
They still get pushed to meet unrealistic deadlines of others in the Chain of Responsibility; dead being the operative word, and still more forms to sign before each trip to cover someone else’s butt.
An owner-driver the other day was talking about the state of the highway, especially for him, between Beresfield and Sydney.
He drives in the right-hand lane unless someone is coming up behind him, purely because of the state of the road and the wear on tear on him and the truck.
He gets a job from the company he’s contracted to, signs all the new paperwork, about fatigue management and the inhouse WH&S waffle.
He’s then told; you better get going because you need to make this 5.30am time slot. No, it’s not some two-bit company, it’s a big one involved with the associations.
No matter what you are doing over the ‘silly season’, we hope you all get home safely and have a Merry Christmas, be kind to each other out there and ‘bring it home safe’.
- Bored Neurotic Housewives are a passionate group of truckies’ wives and partners doing their bit to lobby for positive changes in the industry.