A Queensland truckie has told how he had $1800 worth of equipment stolen from his truck at the road train pads in Mareeba overnight.
Gavan Roy split up a road train in Mareeba yesterday afternoon before driving to Cairns with a single – only to come back this morning to discover the straps had been taken off his truck’s load and the toolbox had been raided.
“I had three cars on the deck and someone has gone and helped themselves to the eight straps that were on them,” he told Big Rigs.
“They also opened the toolbox and took another 20 straps and ratchets out of there, along with probably ten chains and dogs.”
Roy, who is Chief Operations Officer for Rob Roy Earthmoving but spends most of his time on the road, thinks it might have been a fellow truckie who stole the gear.
“I don’t want to point the finger and say for sure it was another truck driver, but it seems like it might be that way,” he said.
“I don’t know what anyone else is going to do with chains and dogs.”
Roy is planning to report the theft but he’s not feeling optimistic about his chances of getting the items back.
“I tried to call the police this morning but they were still asleep when I was up there,” he said.
“I’ll give them a call later today, but really, what are they going to do about it?
“There are no cameras or anything like that there so I don’t know how they would find who did it.
“There are also no lights there – it’s completely dark.”
Roy hadn’t padlocked his toolbox because he said he’d never needed to before, but he will be doing so from now on. Image: Gavan RoyHe said he’s been using the pads at Mareeba for years with no issues.
“The most that has ever happened to me is one or two straps going missing if someone needed to tie something down on the road – not the whole lot being taken,” he said.
He wanted to give other truckies a warning to be careful if they are using that site.
“There were another couple of flat tops on the pads when I was there and they looked like they might have had a couple of straps taken off their gates,” he said.
“There were a couple of gates hanging at the side without straps on them.
“We’re going to have to start padlocking toolboxes.”
He said he’s annoyed and disappointed but there’s not much he can do other than reporting the theft and replacing his gear.
“I’m pissed off about it, but I’m going to have to move on.
“Luckily we’re financially stable and we can carry the cost of this, not that we should have to.
“It would have been worse if this happened to some young bloke who was just starting out in business and struggling to get off the ground.
“Unfortunately, you hear stories like this more and more often these days.”
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