Truckers driven into a legal trap
The fact is that it is almost impossible to find a safe place to park for the required breaks and to sleep overnight.
At present we are using the hard shoulder, which is illegal and highly dangerous. We are constantly afraid something will run into or underneath us. The consequences for everyone involved in such an accident are too frightening even to think about.
This problem becomes even worse at night when we are parked and in our bunks trying to sleep. It is impossible to get a good night's sleep because of the worry of an accident happening.
Because we are parked on the side of the road the truck rocks from side to side every time traffic passes, and this often keeps drivers awake.
Every truck driver who has to sleep out is constantly tired because of the lack of proper rest, but he still has to drive hundreds of miles every day.
The lack of places to park is a huge problem. Nearly every lay-by in the country is blocked off with height barriers and boulders to prevent access.
This is a crazy situation. If we could gain access to them, we could relax when taking our required breaks and we could get a good night's sleep.
With the carnage on our roads and the number of accidents involving trucks increasing, it can only be a good thing not to have tired truck drivers at the wheel every day.
Only in Ireland could a situation arise where you have to break the law to go to work. When we stop for our breaks, we are in breach of the law by parking on the hard shoulder; if we don't stop to take our breaks, we still break the law.
Either way we have to break the law to obey the law. We also have to pay when summoned for exceeding drivers' hours. A fine of a couple of hundred euro may see half our weekly wages go in fines or, worse, we may get an endorsement on our licences.
How long before we will get penalty points for not complying with the drivers' hours regulations. Every other country in Europe has areas where drivers of all types of vehicles can pull in to rest. Some even have toilets and showers for drivers to freshen up.
But we can't even get into the lay-bys. If we find a place on the road that has a wide space inside the hard shoulder we end up damaging the suspension and steering on our trucks because the ground is so rough and uneven and the potholes are so deep.
For some reason the roads are not finished into the grass verge in areas like this anymore.
Damaged suspensions and steering means more dangerous vehicles on the road. It is almost impossible to keep them right because they are being damaged so often. All these problems could be solved if we had proper safe areas to park in.
Having access to the lay-bys would go a long way towards eliminating a very dangerous situation on our roads.
Please help truck drivers to make our roads safer for everyone by giving us access to proper parking and rest areas. I have contacted all the political parties' spokepersons on transport, the NRA and the Department of Transport on this issue, but not many people want to listen. The Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, said he was not responsible for the problem - that says a lot for the Government's road safety campaign - when he was queried recently by Fine Gael Transport spokesperson Olivia Mitchell.
I am still awaiting replies from all the other parties that I contacted.
I know the NRA is considering rest/service areas on dual carriages/motorways. While this is to be welcomed it will do nothing for all single carriageway roads in the country.
James Lane
33 Liam MacGearailt Place
Fermoy
Co Cork
