Opinion

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

teaching an old dog new tricks

If there’s one thing I know about teaching an old dog new tricks, it is that it takes a lot of time and patience. It can be a long hard slog and it still only works in a hit and miss fashion.

Having said that, it was good to read this week that a court in Victoria imposed a Supervisory Intervention Order (SIO) on a truck driver who was stopped with an insecure load at the roadside last year.

The driver has to undergo a load restraint course in the next twelve months otherwise they will be in breach of the order. After completing the course the driver will have no excuse if stopped again with a dangerous load.

Evidence presented to court tell us that, ‘unsecured, exposed heavy pieces of metal on top of each other that had the propensity to become dislodged. The load was deemed high risk with the possibility to cause serious injury and/or death to the driver or other road users.’

Of course the driver was also fined for the incident, but it is the placing of the SIO and extra training which is the innovation here. 

There is no reason why this kind of ‘counselling’ couldn’t be used elsewhere in the trucking world. Should a driver found to be exceeding hours or fiddling the book be sent on some fatigue management refresher course?

The series of rollover prevention courses which did the rounds some years ago definitely had a profound effect in areas where rollovers had become an issue.

However, it certainly is the case that younger drivers tend to take up the practices taught to them in training in a more effective way than some of our older brethren. The ageing truck driver population are resistant to change, but there is a need to change custom and practice in the modern trucking environment.

It may well be that teaching an old dog new tricks is a bit like banging your head against a brick wall sometimes. However, if driving an old dog into a class room and force feeding them the right information improves the safety outcomes, it has to be done.

teaching an old dog new tricks

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