As I promised in my previous post I will talk about Vic Roads. Now they are a completely different animal they can do no wrong in their eyes just this week they where exposed for lack of inspections in trucks allowing our biggest vehicles to drive on our roads unroadworthy.
The way they transfer international licences to Victorian is a massive concern. You see not many have to do a test to get their Victorian licence just 6 months driving experience in driving on our roads. I been given information for a good relyable sorce overseas drivers coming to get their truck licence not knowing or understanding our road rules the most common is thinking that if there are no cars you can roll through a stop sign.
I heard that an applicant at the start of the month who had been in our country since January this year got his licence transferred to Victorian then got an exemption to gain his Heavy Ridged truck licence based on having his licence for more than 2 years in India not how much he understands Victorian road rules. Hence he failed his first attempt due to breaking the road rules but was able to try again and just got through so here we have a person new to our country not really understanding our road rules on our roads allowed to drive a truck upto 25 tonnes on our roads and we say that P Plate drivers are at the biggest risk on our roads due to lack of experience but its ok to drive a truck with little knowledge of our road rules.
Now back to Vic Roads inability to make sure the trucks on our roads are safe we just resently had a number of our fuel carrying trucks caught with massive defects only to be allowed on our roads to be taken off again. Now Vic Roads will claim they did a spot check but only went and inspected after a whistleblower told them that the defects went rectified and they better do something about it before more innocent people die from a crash with a fuel tanker.
Clearly Vic Roads in their Heavy Vehicle section don't have the capacity to do what they are employed to do and do regular checks I think that it could be a job for Worksafe. Why? You ask. You see a truck is like an office it's someone's workplace and should be inspected like another workplace just like a factory or an office. If you have leads all over the place and Worksafe come and inspect your place of work it will be deemed unsafe due to a trip hazard a notice to rectify would be placed and you will be allocated a time frame to fix that's based on the danger and how easy it is to fix. Not much different to a Truck it needs to be a safe workplace roadworthy and fit to do its required task. You see most transport companies just care about if their goods get from A to B and how quick not how it gets there just as long as it does.
The next point is the demerit point system and eligibility it is a fact that when you book in for a heavy vehicle licence there is a check done to see if your eligible. But it seams that if you have no demerit points left and have taken a 12 month bond you are deemed safe to drive an heavy more dangerous vehicle on our roads. You would think that by showing that you have no regard for a road rules driving a smaller vehicle you would deffently have no regard in a bigger one.
Yet believe it Vic Roads allow you to get your licence. I think that you should have a clean driving record to be able to drive a more heavier and dangerous vehicle on our roads. But according to Vic Roads head of road safety there is no need to look at changing the demerit point system yet people are dying on our roads at the hands of such drivers.
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