COURTNEY BURKE
UP to 70 per cent of truck drivers are having a near miss on our roads every week due to poor mental and physical health, a new study has revealed.
Monash University has released figures around truck driver health that show 80 per cent of drivers are overweight or obese, one in five suffer from depression, over 70 per cent live with chronic pain and almost a third have multiple chronic health conditions.
However, local business owner, truck driver and former National Transport Commission member Barry Fletcher said the study “looks like something that’s from 10 years ago, when things hadn’t changed”.
“In the last few years what’s available has significantly changed in terms of drivers talking about their problems with the employer,” he said.
“I think employers have (support) available these days, it’s whether the employees hold their hand up and say ‘Hey, I need some help’. Ten years ago, no one spoke to anyone about it, they just put up with it and that’s the way it worked.”
Mr Fletcher, 63, has been in the transport industry since he was 16 and said the current outlook is a vast improvement.
“It’s a healthier lifestyle than ever now,” he said.
“I’ve got half a dozen drivers and not one of them is obese.
“A lot of our drivers take their own food with them. (Firstly) for their lifestyle and (secondly) because it’s cost affective.
“I carry around a little gas barbecue, pots, pans and I take some packs of meat.”
The study found that 13 per cent of the 400 surveyed reported having a crash in the past year and 70 per cent of drivers reported having a near miss on average one per week.
“I think poor health issues don’t contribute to truck drivers’ near misses with other trucks, I think it’s near misses with other cars,” Mr Fletcher said.
“Going from Berri to Barmera at the Monash T-intersection there – that worries me every time I have to go along.
“I wonder if that car or that truck is going to stop because we’re going straight through and you have to keep worrying about it every time.
“‘Has the person in the car seen me?’ You just don’t know until you get there. It’s something to get used to.”
Half of those surveyed work 41 to 60 hours per week and 37.5 per cent work over 60 hours per week. Mr Fletcher said that up to 60 hours) was often “normal”.
“In a seven-day period you can drive 12 hours a day for six days and on the seventh day you must have a 24-hour break,” he said.
“Driving 12 hours a day is fine. You have breaks and our drivers are allowed to do 14 hours a day with basic fatigue management (BFM).
“You can do a course on it and we put our drivers through BFM. To me, it makes life easier getting to your destination.”
Mr Fletcher said it would be uncommon for a driver to go over the “normal” hours considering how expensive the fine is for breaching the number of hours you can legally drive.
“You go through cameras all the time and you’ve got your law enforcement out there, checking on drivers who are coming through and looking at your log book or your work diary,” he said.
“We’re talking about a $2000 to $2500 fine.”
Mr Fletcher said transport workers who are struggling right now should “talk to somebody”.
“There are people there who specialise in doing that sort of work and that never used to be available and it’s available now,” he said.
“Take advantage of it and go and talk to somebody.”
National secretary of the Transport Worker’ Union (TWU), Michael Kaine, who partnered with the study, says that the evidence should put pressure on the Federal Government to address the problems in road transport linked to driver health.
Steering Healthy Minds, a project aimed at training transport workers to support colleagues with mental health problems is being rolled out nationally.