Post by Miss Honey Nose on Sept 6, 2014 10:26:02 GMT 9.5
Hey Guys,
I am a roadtrain driver (and 4WD enthusiast) and I travel around 11,000km every fortnight in a triple roadtrain transporting food and other essential supplies from Perth to towns and mines in the north-west of WA. This means I get to witness the annual migration and sometimes the debris left on the side of the road by those unfortunate enough to come to grief along the way.
The problem I have been encountering lately, of which I hope this feedback will raise awareness, is the practice of caravan and campervans setting up for the night right in the middle of the parking bay - equal distance from the entrance and exit and effectively rendering the parking bay useless to a vehicle the size of mine, especially if the parking bay was already on the small side as many in the Pilbara, Gascoyne and Murchison are.
If you observe the parking habits of most long distance truck drivers you will find they will try to park as far forward as they can in the parking bay and as far to the left as possible. This leaves the maximum amount of room free for additional vehicles ( be they roadtrains or caravans ) to pull in behind and get some sleep and it also leaves an unobstructed exit free in the "right lane" so if any vehicle wishes to leave before the one(s) in front it is not blocked in. It is a simple system that has worked for many years.
There is another issue related to a much smaller subsection of the transport industry, it is my specialty - refrigerated trailers. Refrigerated trailers run 24/7 while loaded with all the frozen peas, ice cream, milk, lettuce, apples, etc that people expect to be able to buy anywhere in Australia. If I park my noisy trailers next to you at night it's not because I'm an inconsiderate and aggressive truck driver hellbent on ruining your nights sleep.
Consider this: truck drivers hours are regulated by law - when our hours have run out for the day we must pull over or face prosecution (some think it's closer to persecution but I won't go into that). I'm sorry if it happens to be your parking bay I take my mandated rest break in. Everyone will be a lot sorrier if I continued driving and fell asleep at the wheel.
Also, triple roadtrains are bloody big! There are limited places we can safely pull off the road for our rest breaks. Parking bays just happen to be ideal for the task, especially after significant rainfall - no driver in their right mind would pull off the road into anything less than a bitumen or heavily compacted gravel area (parking bay). To do otherwise usually results in immediately becoming bogged with, considering the size and weight involved, limited means of recovery.
So please keep these points in mind next time you are looking to pull up for the night or even just stopping to make a sandwich. If you are the sole occupant of a parking bay the chances are somebody will pull in behind pretty soon - are you positioned to give them easy access? I am happy to share parking bays with all road users but everyone has to apply a bit of common sense and consideration. I will always try to minimise the impact running fridge motors may have on anyone I'm sharing a parking bay with. Parking nose to tail with other vehicles instead of side by side is an effective way of do this - park in front of me and you are a minimum of 20ft from my lead fridge motor, park behind me and you are at least 45ft from my third fridge motor. Park beside me or force me to park beside you and you might be as little as 5ft from it. I've gotten used to the noise, in fact, I find the constantly running fridge actually masks other irregular noises which would normally wake me. Such as irate campers yelling at me to shut it off
I know there are people out there who are just not right in the head and certain concepts never seem to take hold. On behalf of all the sensible truck drivers I apologise in advance for the actions of the, thankfully, few truly stupid individuals that may at some point in their life write "Truck Driver" on their tax return.
Post by Miss Honey Nose on Aug 31, 2014 20:38:48 GMT 9.5
would it be safer to get a diesel heater installed frank,
if we do free camping we wont have any heating ,but just pick the right time of year
though I could always jump in bed as my doona is a continental(down) one and very very snuggly ,but then john could always join me for extra warmth , ha ha
Post by Miss Honey Nose on Jun 13, 2014 17:36:59 GMT 9.5
allan ,tsk tsk tsk, you are a bugger ,what if you have a fire ?
thanks tess maybe it is ,I will have a good look tomorrow , I know when called into paramount to get them to give the van the once over ,in case anything needed doing (it didnt) when we got home there was a smoke alarm in a packet that was sitting on the bed ,it looks different to the one on the ceiling and I forgot to ask them why it was there
boy they have been so good to us ,when we got our van they didnt have to supply a jack so while there we asked about it ,and they gave us a trailermate one, free like I said they have been terrific
Post by Miss Honey Nose on Jun 13, 2014 16:17:49 GMT 9.5
not sure frank,
once deb gets back to work I might ask her to find out more if she can
thanks tess
I also sent a message to the cfa and asked their opinion , but they suggested contacting energy safe australia,but of course they are closed now for the weekend ,so will ring on monday
we will have both in the van and also the house ,I think somehow I want as many odds on our side as I can ,if I can
I wonder why some of you have a prob with the smoke alarm going off in your van when we cook toast and dont , weird huh??
Post by Miss Honey Nose on Jun 12, 2014 20:49:26 GMT 9.5
after reading about them it seems there is no actual standard for australia which is a bit of a worry
all our appliances have been checked and do get regular maintenance ,I also make sure there is plenty of ventilation ,usually much to johns disgust I insist on a window here and there slightly open
Post by Miss Honey Nose on Jun 11, 2014 20:50:18 GMT 9.5
well ,its time to buy the carbon monoxide alarm
we did end up getting everything checked but hadnt bought the carbon monoxide one but will be this week
since the coal mine fires here ,we have both been pretty crook and tired all the time as have many people who live in morwell and surrounds ,in our local paper it seems we have all been lied to by various government agencies ,even our firies some knew the carbon monoxide levels were higher than allowed but were told not to say anything to residents ,the epa etc were all in on it
the ash etc we had here in our home was unbelievable will see if I can find the article
Post by Miss Honey Nose on Aug 31, 2013 14:05:30 GMT 9.5
thanks smokey it makes me wonder as while living here in this house we seem to be always tired and quite a few of those symptoms in that article sure do fit though we have had out heating etc serviced regularly
we will be installing more smoke alarms and those carbon monoxide alarms too
john has a habit of closing everything up tight so I usually go around opening a small window here and there ,I like air movement
Post by Miss Honey Nose on Aug 29, 2013 9:48:31 GMT 9.5
thanks heaps smokey our home has a long passageway which ends at our bedroom ,so as well as where the one is now I might put one further along the passage as the other 3 bedrooms are there the house is split level ,with lounge ,family room and kitchen on the lower level, plus a solid fuel heater in the family room
Post by Miss Honey Nose on Aug 29, 2013 9:02:56 GMT 9.5
hi as most know we have bought another home ,so a query on smoke alarms and where they should be situated
the house only has one alarm ,just outside the main bedroom on the ceiling and even after rining our local brigade I couldnt get a good answer except to look at their web page which really doesnt help a lot
so any advice is much appreciated as I do think more than one alarm is warranted thanks
Post by Miss Honey Nose on Apr 6, 2013 12:11:52 GMT 9.5
when my youngest grand daughter gets her p's we are getting her a defensive driving course ,after looking at them I think they have to have a licence first ,Aimee herself said its a good idea
of course her old man who is a sod rubbished it but from him its what we expected
we also offered it to our elder grand daughter when she got her licence but she poo paahed it and said nan I am a good driver, yeah right
we have a uhf ,and stii have our old 27megs too and yep both know how to use them
many many years ago I belonged to an emergency radio organisation