| Description |
1 online resource (streaming video file) (45 min. 43 sec.) ; 275923674 bytes |
| Summary |
Next on Four Corners, long haul truckies say they're being pushed to the brink by big business and government with lethal results.Long haul trucking is a tough way to make a living. It's also an industry that takes far too many lives. The latest figures show that in just one year 242 people were killed in truck-related crashes and hundreds more were injured. Many of those accidents could have been avoided.Stephen Long goes on the road with drivers who risk their lives every day, trying to meet impossible deadlines. What he finds is a deadly intersection of corporate greed, government inaction and an industry feeding on itself.Over the past few years a series of horrific truck crashes have renewed questions about the state of the road transport industry. Are drivers being paid a fair wage? Are big companies forcing down freight rates unreasonably to improve their bottom line? And are trucking companies and owner-drivers responding to the pressure by cutting corners on maintenance to keep their businesses alive?What Four Corners discovered talking to those inside the industry will chill anyone using our highways. Drivers confess to consistent and significant drug abuse. Another reveals how his company was switching drivers to avoid police and Transport Department checks.One insider tells how a corporate takeover led his company to cut its maintenance schedule to save money and improve its bottom line."I know for a fact of trucks being driven with very poor repair jobs done on them, they should never have been on the road... mudguards fall off, sets of wheels fall off, brake hubs disappear never to be seen again."He also tells how old equipment was put back on the road to fulfil contracts. In one case, one of those pieces of equipment was involved in a recent fatal road accident.Perhaps the most surprising fact is that governments and companies have been told repeatedly about the shocking state of the trucking industry. The program hears how insiders who speak out are either ignored or sacked and then frozen out.Responding to public outrage, governments have ramped up roadside checks and imposed bigger fines. All these measures punish drivers. At the same time, the trucking companies and their corporate clients are rarely charged or fined.As one former truck driver told us, reflecting on a fatal crash:"Two men have lost their lives. One man's in gaol. There's a transport company still turning its wheels. No investigation. Scott free; got off."In what seems an open and shut case for greater regulation, the current Federal Government has responded by warning that it may abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, a body with the power to regulate the industry and to set sustainable freight rates for truckies.As one insider warns, the industry is at breaking point:"Why would you come into an industry where you're going to be victimised, this is the problem with the industry. The good operators are getting out and it's leaving us with cowboys." |
| Event |
Broadcast 2014-02-03 at 20:30:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: NC |
| Subject |
Roads -- Safety measures.
|
|
Truck drivers -- Drug use.
|
|
Trucking -- Accidents.
|
|
Trucking -- Economic aspects.
|
|
Wages -- Truck drivers.
|
|
New South Wales.
|
| Form |
Streaming video
|
| Author |
Long, Stephen, reporter
|
|
Quinlan, Michael, contributor
|
|
Turpie, Brian, contributor
|
|
