A day in a truck provides plenty of lessons

I’ve ducked in front of plenty of trucks in my time, driving my tiny Toyota Yaris impatiently and not wanting to “get stuck” behind what many road users naively regard as a bit of a pain in the rear. So when Cliff Graham asked me to spend the best part of a day in his truck carting cattle to Harvey, I jumped at the opportunity to see what life was like behind the wheel of a giant Kenworth 908 with two trailers carting 66 head of cattle. The outspoken truckie is a passionate road safety advocate who has spent more than 40 years on the road, drawn to the career by a childhood spent in the cab with his uncles before finally starting to drive his own trucks at 17. Truck safety has been front-of-mind for Cliff since he was nine years old, when his much-loved uncle was killed by a burning tree branch that crushed his cab. The tree had been set on fire as part of prescribed burning in crown land at Biggenden, a small town south-east of Bundaberg. “No one went back to check it, and a big gum tree started burning,” he said.“It burnt right through, fell on the cab and truck and killed him. No one was ever held accountable for it.” Cliff and I have spoken regularly in the past six months about a wide range of issues affecting the trucking industry but I did not realise the trip to Harvey and back would be such an eye opener. Like most, and even despite my huge interest in agriculture, I take for granted the fact that everything we buy at the supermarket each week has been transported from somewhere else, by someone else. And I’ve also hardly ever considered the risky encounters truck drivers experience at the hands of other drivers most days, either. Pulling into a service station carpark at Muchea, my Uber driver’s eyes nearly fall out of his head as he sees the Kenworth T908 I’m about to climb into, with a friendly hand waving from the cab. Cliff’s ready to go, and as I clamber into the cab with my camera bag precariously hanging off my shoulder, I turn to wave goodbye to the Uber driver and see him taking a picture of the vehicle with a big, goofy grin on his face. Trucking is pretty cool — and Cliff definitely concurs. It is 8am and he has already been on the road for two hours after leaving Badgingarra with his truck loaded with 66 head of cattle from a station in the Pilbara. We head south, cruising down the Tonkin Highway past Ellenbrook and onto the new NorthLink section that will take us past Morley and the Perth Airport and eventually onto Roe to get to the Kwinana Freeway. The drive through Perth along the Tonkin Highway is quick, smooth and really, really busy. It’s peak hour traffic and by 9am there are small cars hurtling down the highway, heading south. As we drive, Cliff tells me about both his morning and his broader passion for safety on our roads. One of his most simple bugbears is people not looking in their mirrors, or considering that their actions — stopping suddenly or turning — can really affect others. As we approach the Safety Bay exit and a white Holden Barina pulls in front of us, darts across our lane to make the exit — crossing the white line to the exit lane. That same car unnecessarily overtook us just minutes before. “If they had stuck behind me, they would have lost just a few minutes of their time,” Cliff says as he shakes his head. “People overtake, and then you pull up at traffic lights and the person they rush to overtake is right next to them. It is pointless.” This is the first of a multitude of examples of potentially dangerous driving we see during our two-hour journey to Harvey. Many of the incidents might seem innocuous to the average driver, but Cliff is hyper aware. His boss, Cob & Co manager Kimberly “Cob” de Pledge was jailed two years ago for a fatal accident which killed two adults near Tom Price in 2017, with De Pledge’s family and friends long believing poor roadworks signage contributed to the accident. Cliff believes he has seen more “terrible and scary roadworks signage” while carting cattle during his short time in WA after decades of carting freight, heavy haulage and cattle in Queensland. This includes roadworks signs blown over or abandoned next to and on major highways, and signs placed so close together there was “no way” trucks could slow down. “People think, ‘oh, an accident will never happen to me,” he says. “I see people cutting corners and doing stupid things because they know we (truck drivers) will always try to let them in. “If drivers would actually stop to think, ‘is it worth the risk’? The answer would always be, no.” On our journey to Harvey, we see cars driving 100kmph with mess than a metre between them. The sight makes Cliff shudder — as does the sight of cars driving right behind him or right in front of him without ample distance for him and his truck to stop if something “turned ugly”. One of the phrases Cliff churns out on our trip sticks with me long after our journey — that “everything is good until it turns ugly.” Cliff believes not many people are prepared for “ugliness” when they drive into a dangerous situation and the “she’ll be right” mentality is too prevalent on roads. We approach the rear of a silver Nissan Navara with a trailer with the words “mowing, weeding and gardening” on the side. It’s travelling slower than us so we approach with caution, indicate and hop into the right lane to overtake. All good, no worries. Within seconds, the driver of the Navara speeds up and suddenly we are neck-and-neck on the road. That drivers’ decision to put his foot down has placed us and our 60 tonne load in an awkward situation, with cars banked up behind us. Luckily, we were already travelling under the 100km/h speed limit and have room to move. Cliff puts his foot down and overtakes, shaking his head. Several kilometres and minutes further down the highway, we start to cruise behind a small, white van, but soon realise we will probably need to overtake. At the speed limit, it takes us five minutes. Cars impatiently bank up behind us, but Cliff is not keen to speed. Settled into the left lane again, we continue to chat but it isn’t long before my eye catches movement in Cliff’s rear view mirror. A small blue car darts in and out of our line of sight. We are in the left lane again and we make a calculated guess that the driver isn’t sure if he should overtake us. Hmm. After what seems like an eternity, the car goes for it — dipping around us and then pulling nearly directly in front of us, causing Cliff to brake slightly. The car has taken up our stopping distance. Should it have to stop suddenly, there would be big trouble. It’s a lightbulb moment for me and coupled with a ping of regret as I think of all of the times I have impatiently done the same — with very little consideration for mine and others’ safety. “Doing something like that just totally takes away my stopping distance,” Cliff says. “If you are in the country and someone pulls in front of you — especially on a blind corner — you might travel another 150m and find a cow on the road. “All of a sudden they are between you and the bull, or a tree on the road, or an accident ... and you have no stopping distance.” We’re on the Forrest Highway when we indicate to overtake a small, silver van loaded to the roof with surfboards, bags and what looks like camping gear. “Woah, hold up,” Cliff says and gently brakes as the van crosses the white dotted line in front of us. The van veers half of its body onto the right hand side of the road, metres in front of us and then darts back across to the left hand side. “Bet he’s on his phone,” Cliff grumbles, and I agree. Cliff’s concerns are heightened during the school holidays, when WA’s roads swell with an assortment of road users all in a hurry to get somewhere and relax. Cliff tells me that just as recently as a week before, he slowed to drive past a car and three people trying to rescue a kayak splayed on the side of the road after obviously falling from the roof mid drive. “People with boats, jet skis, and campervans ... they are often hammering along,” he said. “They are in a rush to get there and enjoy their holiday. “Comparatively, caravans are often slow and they travel in pairs ... which can be equally as dangerous. “I have to find a spot to overtake both of them, because there is no teaching them to say we need to spread out a bit so the truck can overtake it.” Time flies and we deliver cattle to their final destination at Harvey — both us and the cattle are safe and sound — and head back to the highway to start our trip home. But it isn’t long before we see more examples of potentially dangerous driving. The last of several cars overtaking quickly darts across and settles just 10m in front of us. Cliff waits until the car is a good 40m in front and says “this is how far he should have been sitting before pulling across”. A few minutes later, we see a white bag and a flattened road sign — impossible to read — laying forgotten on the side of the road. Neither of us can decipher the speed written on the sign and we are fairly sure it does not relate to the roadworks we drove through a few kilometres earlier. As we near our destination, a service station where I’m getting picked up, I think we must be almost done with our observations of bad driving for the day. As we pull onto Tonkin Highway and off Roe, a gold Commodore hoons across the white line in front of us to tear around the corner. “They never learn,” Cliff says. But I think that I have definitely learnt a thing or two on this trip. As we sit in a trucker’s booth at Kewdale and tuck into a toasted sandwich, I have plenty to digest. I realise I have driven like an absolute imbecile at times in an effort to avoid getting “stuck” behind a truck. Reaching for another chip, I ask Cliff what he is most passionate about when it comes to road safety. “Everyone gets home safe,” he says, before a pause... “and whatever you are carting gets delivered”. It’s a good message. Cally Dupe is the editor at Countryman newspaper.