By Patrick O'Leary and Paul Collings
How do you promote the professional status of truck drivers in South Africa? How do you enhance their image in the eyes of other road users? How do you get the public, the government as well as the captains of commerce and industry to recognize the vital role truck drivers play not only in the economy of the county but also in the daily lives of every citizen?
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Professional truck driver George Killian (left) meets professional pilot Johan 'Brandie' Branders to show him what our magnificent men in their road machines face compared to those magnificent men in their flying machines. Look closely at the picture
below and you'll see a pilot behind the wheel of this magnificent MAN TGA 26.410 interlink combination. |
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One sure way would be to organise a truck strike. Let all trucks park off for a couple of days and people would soon sit up and take notice. Imagine no fresh bread or milk deliveries, no newspapers, no bricks arriving at construction sites, no containers with export goods being hauled to the harbours, no oxygen being delivered to hospitals, no fresh food going to restaurants, no components arriving at factory assembly lines, no finished products from those same assembly lines being taken to the markets. We could go on and on but we're sure you get the picture.
Organising such a strike is something FleetWatch has always longed to do, if only to 'clap' everyone into awareness. But wow, the devastating impact on the economy and on people's lives would be just too much. Perhaps a gentler way might do the trick. Why not get someone who is respected by all as a professional, a gentleman, a scholar, a pillar of all that's good in society? Someone who, when he or she walks by, is viewed as an icon of respectability and professionalism. That would surely do the trick.
What about a commercial airline pilot? A pilot in uniform commands respect. The image a pilot enjoys is probably one of the highest of all professions. Pilots are also the sort of guys who are fascinated by things technical. And our modern trucks of today are certainly high-tech. It all adds up so let's get a pilot to drive a truck and give his view of whether or not you need a professional or a 'monkey' behind the wheel of a truck. Let's also get his view on whether the perception held by the public, and all others, is the correct one or whether for years, society has been doing the truck drivers of South Africa an injustice.
So that's what FleetWatch did. Soliciting the services of ace commercial pilot Johan 'Brandie' Branders, who has been around aviation for 30 years and given instruction for 25 years, we, along with our valuable like-minded partners in this venture, all set off for Gerotek to present to the pilot the case for the truck driver - not only in terms of the task of driving but also highlighting some of the ills relating to truck drivers via driving license issues, medical anomalies, dietary deficiencies using comparisons between a pilot's qualifications/requirements and those of a truck driver.
The rationale behind all this was that if a professional pilot who flies high-tech aircraft says it needs a professional to drive a truck, then surely the image of truck drivers will get a boost. It may also just serve to attract youngsters into the profession - something we desperately need to do.
DOING IT RIGHT proved difficult for the pilot when trying to manoeuvre on the test track and convinced him that training is essential. |
SETTING UP the course to let the pilot experience what truck drivers face every day took some hard work on the part of George Killian.
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A BIT OF hands-on training by ace truck driver George Killian helped Brandie eventually reverse into a laid out 'parking bay'. |
BRANDIE BRANDERS..."I will be eternally grateful that I always park an aircraft moving forward"
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TYRES come into play all the way on a truck's journey whereas they are only needed for take off and landing on aircraft. Our thanks go to Michelin for joining us on this venture.
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IT'S ALL smiles from our intrepid pilot as he ends his truck venture. 'Brandie' was a true star and came away with a deep appreciation of what truck drivers have to contend with in their jobs. |
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Partners in the venture
Our main partner in this venture was MAN Truck & Bus South Africa. These good folk, who are also passionate about raising the image of truck drivers, came on board without hesitation providing an MAN TGA 26.410 truck tractor hooked to an Afrit interlink with the combination grossing at 58 tons for the project. MAN provided us with jackpot in terms of a high-tech, high-spec truck with all the bells and whistles. Thanks so much for that because an important aspect of the initiative was also to highlight the fact that new trucks are as technologically sophisticated as an aeroplane and drivers need to fully understand exactly what specific technologies can and cannot do for them.
Just as auto-pilot mode in an aircraft is designed to take the hard work out of flying, the MAN TGL has sophisticated engine, transmission, braking and 'navigation' technologies designed to take the hard work out of truck driving, thus allowing the driver to concentrate on running the vehicle as efficiently as possible. ABS, EBS, lane assist and triptonic gearboxes free the driver up to negotiate traffic and changing terrain. One imagines a plane's auto-pilot function is also utilised to free the pilot up to do other things. Yes, well......!!!
Also coming on board without hesitation was Digicore with the truck-passionate Bruce Richards immediately seeing this as an innovative way of raising the profile of South Africa's unsung heroes. The communication and navigation systems used on aircraft and trucks are very similar. Then came ABSA Vehicle and Asset Finance, Michelin, Engen as well as the Centre for Psychomotor Research and Development run by Carina Coetzee. On the medical side, we invited Francois Swanepoel from Medexec who would be part of the morning's briefing session. His task was to sketch the comparisons between the medical examination requirements of drivers and pilots.
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The challenge really
started with the firt steep uphill. |
Each partner was carefully chosen for their particular area of expertise in terms of contributions to the project as a whole and the debates around the issue.
The morning started with a briefing session with each partner, including
FleetWatch's Lorinda Stoltz, giving a presentation on a set subject within their areas of expertise. The material presented in this morning session provided fascinating insights which, because of the importance of this issue as well as the fact that we want this to be an on-going sustainable initiative, we will highlight in next month's edition of
FleetWatch. This edition is being used to introduce the project and hear what the pilot had to say.
It was then off to Gerotek's ride and drive track where 'Brandie' was teamed with MAN SA's ace driver-trainer George Kilian. The pilot took the passenger seat to watch how a 6x4 specialist negotiated the demanding Gerotek gradients and corners. After being shown the ropes, it was then 'Brandie's' turn to haul the rig up and over the circuit with Kilian getting him to execute pull-offs from a standstill on extremely steep inclines.
With cones lining the circuit to make turning 'road real', Branders performed exceptionally well, leaving all cones untouched and rolling backwards only once. The real test, however, was the reverse parking on the skidpan where the pilot found the going extremely tough. You can read his report of the experience on the following pages.
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The project solicited strong hands-on interest from other media including SABC News, Beeld and Radio 2000. Others have since expressed interest in the project and we will be passing information on to the wider media so as to get the message across to the public that truck drivers are not such bad guys after all. |
Bottom Line
The "Driver-Pilot Project" is just a beginning: An initiative by like-minded stakeholders to help cure a 'disease' that threatens to eat away at the very heart of the transport industry. This 'disease' is primarily the poisoned public perception of truck drivers which erodes the driver's sense of self worth. However, there's also a 'cancer' from within the industry in terms of lack of skills, poor health, no training, long hours related to shoddy pay and many other ills.
While acting to shift the mindset of the general public is an important exercise, it is crucial that transport operators and other transport related organisations (most importantly government) deal head-on with not only driver health/fitness/skills issues but also with the psychological issues affecting them on a daily basis. It has to start in the yard. The cab is the driver's office, a very high tech one. If the job is being done, it's all because of the driver. Treat him or her like you would an Airbus captain.
Now read on for the pilot's version of his experiences and lessons learnt. The bottom line is, as he states, that he came away with a new level of respect for the men who drive the 'chariots of our roads'. Our objective was achieved.
