Although he is a big fan of truckers, at least Steven Joyce has made clear that the Government has no intention of changing the road rules to accommodate those who work long hours without breaks.
On Tuesday trucking company John Austin Ltd was fined $20,000 and had 21 truck drivers banned from driving for a month for flouting truck laws, and spending too many hours behind the wheel.
Steven Joyce says the rules are there for a reason. “Fatigue is a real problem on our roads and of course if you are handling a heavy vehicle and if there is a problem the margins for error are not good,” he says.
Labour MP Darien Fenton says low pay for truck drivers is the underlying problem: “Drivers are forced to break the rules to make a living... and until we face up to that, we are going to continue to have road deaths and trucking deaths,” he says and he is probably right about that too.
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