THE DEFINITIVE TRUCKING SITE

It’s 3.15pm on July 15th and I’m sitting in McGinty’s at OR Tambo Airport having just finished a fine pub lunch of liver and onions washed down by a Coke Light. I’m going to send the bill to 1Time airline. Why? Because I should have landed in Durban at 2.30pm and by this time been cruising along the N3 highway towards Pietermaritzburg to meet up with the rest of our Brake & Tyre Watch team. Instead, a delay in the flight has caused me to spend money on food and drink which I would have been given on the plane as part of the ticket I’ve already paid for. We were supposed to take off at 1.30 but were told there was a delay due to a ‘technical problem’ with the plane and we’d be going at 2.00pm. The top of the hour came – and went – and we were then advised that the delay would be ‘indefinite’ as it was taking longer than envisaged to fix the ‘problem’. Given the number of recent air crashes, the news of the plane on which the father of my kids and husband of my beloved wife was about to fly having a ‘technical problem’ didn’t exactly instil in me a feeling of warmth and goodwill towards 1Time or the flight ahead. I hate flying at the best of times and having become a sort of masochistic watcher of Air Crash Investigations on DSTV, anything that hints of a ‘technical problem’ with the plane on which I am about to fly causes me to look frantically around for some excuse to cancel the flight and drive to my destination. And hey, this fear is not unfounded you know. Just think of it... 

Sitting in the seat of an airplane 32 000 feet above the ground, your safety is totally in the hands of some stranger up ahead who you know only as ‘this is your Captain speaking’. And then, if some technical problem manifests at 32 000 feet and you start making your way rapidly towards earth, there’s nothing you can do but trust in that stranger and adopt the brace position. Further that that, it’s all out of your hands. It’s out of your control. Mind you, I suppose you can switch on your cell phone to phone home. After all, I doubt whether the air hostess will come rap you on the knuckles for using a device that interferes with the electronics of the plane while that same plane is heading towards earth at 700 kph due to some technical problem. Then again, given the number of dropped calls by the MTN network nowadays, you’ll probably just get past the five or so customary ‘Network Busy’ call barriers that precede every call you make and just as you start talking, the line will go dead and you'll be left staring at the ‘call disconnected’ notification on the little screen of your cell phone. “Who was that?” your wife will be asked by the person next to her. “It was my husband and I’m gonna whack him when I see him. I heard a lot of screaming and shouting in the background so he’s obviously having fun at some lunch-time pub show and is phoning to try convince me he’s arrived in Durban. The swine.” 

So you’re now back to adopting the brace position as the only means of self-control you have over your survival. Mind you, what you can also do to pass the time is to look out the window to determine whether you’re going to hit land or water. If you see water beneath you, that’s good news for you can then get more control back into your hands by using the lifejacket conveniently situated under your seat. On the way to Durban, that will probably be Sterkfontein Dam which is good news as it means you won’t have to swim too far to shore once gravity has sorted out the ‘technical problem’. But then again, that’s also not entirely in your hands as the safety/emergency card – which is the first thing I reach for every time I get onto a plane – instructs you that although you can put the thing on, you are not allowed to inflate it until the plane has come to rest and you’re out the plane. So you’ve first got to wait for the plane to hit the surface of the water at 700 kph, then sink rapidly past thousands of wide-eyed, surprised fish until finally it comes to rest 32 000 feet below the surface. Only then can you open the emergency exit, step out the plane and inflate your life jacket. So again. There’s not much in your control. So what has all this to do with trucking? 

As I write this, I am thinking of the irony of the situation I find myself in. Here I am, on the way to our Brake & Tyre Watch project where we will be training around 100 KwaZulu-Natal cops on ways to identify signs of unroadworthy and unmaintained trucks - and I’m rising up slowly from the bottom of Sterkfontein Dam due to a ‘technical problem’ with the plane I’ve been flying on. And I’ve had absolutely no control over any part of my flying destiny. How different this is to trucking. I’m not sure what the state of the vehicles will be when we pull them off the road two days from now for testing but based on past experience in other provinces, I can bet we will find some real ‘dogs’. The problem is that when these ‘dogs’ go out on the road, they will end up biting innocents who have nothing to do with them. Unroadworthy trucks are a major cause of deaths on our roads and unlike me as an airline passenger who has no control over the situation, truck operators have total control – or should have – over the condition of their trucks. And yet so many operators allow their trucks on the roads knowing that those trucks are plagued with a host of ‘technical problems’. These operators not only knowingly and quite willingly send their drivers – the Captains of their fleet – to early graves but also bury with them innocents who have no control over the situation. So many family members have died by being caught up in accidents that are not of their own doing. 

Hey, I’ve got to rush. I’ve got a plane to catch. The problem has been fixed and the plane is now air-worthy. And don’t sweat 1Time. I won’t send you my liver and onions bill simply because it’s a small price to pay for my life. You see, I appreciate rather than resent the fact that you fixed the problem on the ‘vehicle’ I am travelling on before sending it on its way. Before I go though, here’s a question to those operators who are guilty of the practises mentioned above – and you know who you are. If you were facing the situation I have just faced, would you have gone up to the Captain and said: “Just ignore the problem. Don’t fix it. I know it’s a danger but I’m getting on the plane. Let’s just go?” There is not one of you would have done that for you value your life. So why do you place so little value on other people’s lives? The roadworthiness of your trucks is in your hands. It’s in your control so I urge you: Don’t let any of them take off if you know they have a ‘technical problem’. Fix it before sending it on its journey. It’s a small price to pay to ensure people stay alive. 

Patrick O'Leary
Managing Editor