A truckie has expressed his frustration after the brand new truck he drives was damaged in yet another rock throwing incident.
The veteran driver contacted Big Rigs after reading about a truckie injured while travelling through the Saunders Creek overpass on the Bruce Highway, north of Townsville recently, when a piece of concrete was thrown at the truck’s windscreen.
The 52-year-old truckie revealed his truck was hit at the same location, at around midnight one evening as he was heading to the nearby BP truck stop.
A truckie for over 35 years, he does interstate heavy haulage work for St George Freightlines in Toowoomba, Queensland, travelling across the country and he was recently given the keys to a brand new Iveco S-way.
“A railway rock was thrown at my brand new truck and left a large dent on the passenger side door,” he said.
“It was in the exact same spot in the overpass over the rail lines. They hide in the bushes on the edge of the overpass between the late hours of the night and the early hours of the morning.”
He says he was lucky that the rock hit as he was merging. “If I was in the left hand lane fully, it would have gone through the passenger window.
“I was heading north to Townsville and Cairns, with two 40 ft containers on.”
And this isn’t the first time it’s happened to this truck driver either. “This is the third time now,” he said. “I’ve had rocks thrown at the windscreen at Pennant Hills Road in Sydney and at Maitland just before Newcastle.
“Both of those incidents were many years ago but I’m hearing of it happening more and more now. It’s getting beyond a joke now.”
He believes authorities need to do more to try and catch the culprits of these incidents in the act. “When we notify police, it’s too late and nothing can be done. What they really need to do, if it’s happening at a particular hotspot is they need to have someone there between the hours of 9pm and 4am – and wait for them to turn up. They might have half a chance of catching them then.
“The trucking industry is getting fed up with it. We all have families to go home to. The highway itself is our office. We have to deal with so much rubbish already as it is!”
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