WHAT KEEPS TRUCKIES GOING
MORE WHITE POWDER THAT YOU'D PUT IN WASHING MACHINE

AMPHETAMINES in pay packets, rewinding odometers and driving 84 hours
without sleep AD these are some of the horror stories an inquiry into
the trucking industry heard yesterday.The inquiry heard evidence from
truck drivers and their families about how drivers struggled to meet
impossible deadlines by speeding, taking drugs and doctoring log books.

Pressure from contractors and retailers had resulted in drivers
literally killing themselves to make deliveries on time.

The Safety Inquiry into the Long Haul Trucking Industry heard trucking
was the only industry which had its own memorial.

It was erected at Tarcutta, the mid-point in the Sydney to Melbourne
run, and had about 650 names of truck drivers who had died on
Australia's roads.

"It concerns me as a parent and as an individual that these things go
on on our roads ... I cannot hide that I am actually very affected by
that evidence," inquiry leader Professor Michael Quinlan said
yesterday. One trucker's wife, Melissa Jones AD who also worked as a
trucker before she rolled her rig two years ago trying to meet a
deadline AD said slimming pills, speed and "shakers" were used by about
one-third of truckers.

"You take drugs, not because drivers want to take them but because
they're forced to take them or they will get the sack for being late,"
she said.

She said some small companies handed out sachets of speed in pay
packets and at least three truck stops on the New England Hwy were
known to deal drugs to truckers over the counter.

Judith Penton, a trucker's wife for 36 years and chairperson of
Concerned Families of Australian Truckers, said she regularly
counselled drivers by CB radio.

One driver told her he had been on the road for 87 hours and had only
slept for four hours when she told him to pull over and get some sleep.

"He said, 'Look lady, I couldn't sleep if I tried. I've got more white
powder up my nose than you would put in your washing machine'."

Mrs Jones told the inquiry tow truck operators were usually the first
at the scene of an accident involving a truck.

"If you have a crash on drugs, the tow truck driver asks you, 'Do you
want me to get anything out of the cab?' by which they mean hiding the
drugs before the police come," she said.

Prof Quinlan said he had heard earlier evidence that tow truck drivers
wiped the inside of trucks with claening aids or WD 40 to get rid of
drug residue.

He will continue the inquiry in Sydney until Friday. It will then move
to Canberra, Grafton, Albury and then Queensland and Victoria.