For Michael King, the pride of being a truck driver has coursed through his veins since he was a wide-eyed country kid.

“I was lucky my father had a smaller truck so I started off [driving] at nine years of age, that was when I drove my first truck,” he said.

“I always wanted to drive so I did an apprenticeship at 16 and had the opportunity to drive smaller trucks, then moved onto the road train business when I was about 25.”

But as he reflected on the level of experience on roads now and how training had changed, the veteran truck driver said the quality of drivers was “only going backwards”.

“Today it’s a case of, ‘oh, I want to be a truck driver’, so you go and do a few simple tests and you’re on your way. That doesn’t cut the mustard with what you’re doing,” Mr King said. 

“[You’ve got to think about] what happens when things go wrong? Can you fix it? I’ve seen some drivers that can’t change a tyre, that’s how bad the industry’s got.” 

Better training needed

In Western Australia, Heavy Vehicle Licences are transferable from other states in Australia and drivers are not required to complete a theory or practical driving assessment when they move interstate.

According to the Department of Transport (DOT), applicants in all classes are expected to take “as much time as necessary” in practising driving under supervision. 

A DOT spokesperson said although current training and assessment requirements for truck licences were “fit for purpose”, requirements were regularly reviewed. 

But Transport Workers Union WA branch secretary Tim Dawson said there was “a lot missing” from training programs.

“We try to give [new drivers] as much experience as we can, but before they even sit for a licence they should be doing a load restraint course or a fatigue course,” he said.

“There needs to be an all-encompassing course before someone gets a licence, where they need to do minimum hours before driving themselves.

“We’ve got to make sure it’s a proper traineeship and we’ve been calling for a number of years to have a proper apprenticeship within the transport industry so we attract young people.” 

Low experience, higher road risk

WA has had its worst year for road fatalities in nearly a decade.

So far this year there has been at least 132 deaths on the state’s roads, 79 of which were on regional roads.

During 2023, there were a total of 1,393 crashes across the state, involving trucks.

Of these, 70 occurred in the Wheatbelt region and 25 in the Midwest-Gascoyne region. 

Shire of Moora President Tracy Lefroy said while the standard of regional roads was an issue, driver inexperience was also a contributing factor to accidents. 

“Unfortunately we’ve had a couple of road accidents in the Shire of Moora over the last month but we’ve found that they’ve come from truck drivers who are inexperienced,” she said.

“When they’re carrying a heavy load there may be no edges on the road — that is just a different experience. So we’re finding there’s an increase of accidents but also a lack of understanding from these drivers.”

Western Roads Federation chief executive Cam Dumesny said training programs needed to reflect the changing demographic of drivers.

“We’re a highly urbanised population now, lots of people have migrated to the city but we grew up driving on regional roads,” he said.

Having attended this month’s road safety summit in Perth, Mr Dumesny said he felt the trucking industry could be a part of the solution to lowering WA’s road toll. 

“There’s a lot of ideas out there but we need to start getting serious,” he said.

“Our [senior] truck drivers have a wealth of experience, they’re on the road everyday and we’ve got to get them into a room with the road safety academics, which is what we’ve been arguing.”