Owner/Driver #339

TWU Michael Kaine
Unanswered questions
Much publicity has centred on the Porsche driver,
but what about the state of the pressured truckie?
INCIDENTS LIKE what happened
on the evening of April 22 last
year on the Eastern Freeway
in Kew, Victoria, rightly send
shudders across our industry.
The deaths of four police officers
as a result of a truck crash is so
tragic and abhorrent that it will end
up as one of those crashes we won’t
ever forget.
Mohinder Singh has pleaded guilty
to charges related to the crash after
he veered into the emergency lane
and hit the police officers gathered
around a Porsche they had stopped.
A recent court hearing on
sentencing revealed some of the
details of the case.
Singh was not only high on ice but
he was also using the truck to deliver
drugs. He had had five hours’ sleep in
the previous three days.
The court heard Singh faced
“sustained pressure” to drive that
day from a supervisor at Connect
Logistics. This supervisor also faces
serious charges after police uncovered
details of how Singh stated that
another supervisor told him he
wasn’t fit to drive but was told to
do so nonetheless.
Singh, the court also heard, was
“vulnerable to influence” given his
mental state and was concerned
at being sacked as he was on a sixmonth
probation with the company.
We can say that these kinds of
cases just don’t happen much in our
industry anymore. But the fact is that
this did happen and it shows in an
extreme way how low things can go in
our industry.
We shouldn’t be shocked because
the truth is there has been little or
nothing to stop this happening and
everything that is creating a race to
the bottom in our industry.
Singh will be sentenced this month
and could be put away for several
years. But will our industry really be
any safer?
The thing that should shock people
is that while Singh and the supervisor
have rightly faced scrutiny and
criminal charges, not much light has
been shone on how someone in that
state can get put into a truck.
DRUG DELIVERY
A case as serious as this involving
the deaths of four police officers
should address all of the unanswered
questions, including:
• Why was nothing done about
Singh’s behaviour, which must have
been apparent before April 22?
• How was he allowed to use the
truck to deliver drugs, given all the
truck monitoring technology that is
much touted nowadays?
• What training did he received?
• When was he last drug-tested?
• What pressures was the supervisor
under to get the delivery done?
• Was Connect Logistics under
financial pressure that resulted in
the driver and supervisor working
there who were not fit for the job?
• What were the terms and conditions
of the contract to deliver the frozen
chickens that Singh was carrying?
• Did it allow for the safe transport of
the goods?
Singh’s sentencing this month will
coincide with the fifth anniversary of
the tearing down of an independent
tribunal that was investigating risks
to safety in trucking.
Had the tribunal been in place, it
could have investigated these issues
and scrutinised the entire supply
chain to see what went wrong. It
could have made recommendations
and orders if necessary to address the
safety risks.
The tribunal was investigating the
oil, fuel and gas industry following
the Mona Vale crash in 2013 in
which two people were killed. That
investigation was also abandoned,
along with the tribunal.
The fact is that the federal
government, which abolished the
tribunal, put nothing in its place to
MICHAEL KAINE is the national secretary
of the Transport Workers Union of
Australia. Contact Michael at: NSW
Transport Workers Union, Transport
House, 188-390 Sussex Street, Sydney, NSW
2000. twu@twu.com.au
“How was he
allowed to use
the truck to
deliver drugs?”
BRING
OUT THE
MONSTER
IN YOUR TRUCK
address these kinds of safety risks. It has not
addressed rates, despite promising to do so
at the time, it has not held clients to account
and it has cut the trucking community adrift.
It has allowed the likes of Amazon and the
gig economy to walk into Australia and drag
conditions down further in the absence of
regulation.
SKIPPING BREAKS
We are working with reputable industry
bodies and clients which are interested in
lifting standards in our industry and want
to put an end to incidents like those on
April 22, 2020. We are keen to work with
these, and other, groups that care about
the reputation of our industry and want
to address the safety problems that see too
many tragedies occurring.
There have been 895 deaths from truck
crashes in the last five years. There is no
doubt that many of these lives would have
been saved if we could ensure that no
transport operator felt financial pressure
that resulted in maintenance being delayed
and truck drivers forced to speed, drive long
hours and skip mandatory rest breaks.
There are many in our industry on board
with pushing for regulation to lift standards
i n it. There are a few that, for ideological
reasons, remain outside the tent, pushing
meaningless voluntary codes and cosying up
to and standing in for publicity shots with
those in politics who have no interest in
making our industry better.
When it comes to road safety and stopping
incidents like those from April 22 there
should be no argument but that our industry
has got to change.
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APRIL 2021 29