Truck stop
One of the most familiar features of the classic Kiwi holiday is the truck crawl — in which you swear and fume behind the wheel as you creep uphill in a line of traffic behind a big, slow-moving rig. With everyone taking their holidays at home this year, there is likely to be even more of it about.
Kyle Quin drives those big trucks. He’d like you to know that if being stuck behind one is infuriating, being in the truck is no less so. You’re trying to get somewhere in good time. He’s trying to get somewhere alive.
“People just think about getting in front of us,” says Quin. “No one likes to be stuck behind a truck, but people have to think about their choices — a few minutes out of their day to get home safely, or take the risk and pass us and you’re dealing with a serious matter.”
He feels your pain but says, “It makes life difficult for us. The first thing on our mind is other people’s safety — the damage and injuries we could cause if we make mistakes.”
He has been lucky in his more than 10 years at the wheel of the big rigs — but there have been some frighteningly close calls.
“It’s amazing how many people we see texting. Anyone passing me will have their phone in their lap. One close call
I had, she must have been texting. She was heading straight at me, looked up and saw me, got a fright, swerved to the left, put her back wheels into loose metal, tried to over-correct because she knew she would spin out and I looked in the mirror and she had gone off the bank. I got out to help and she was screaming. It wasn’t nice.”
That situation resolved itself. On another occasion, Quin was spoiled for choice: “A girl pulled straight out of a side road in front of me. She didn’t pull to the left, just sat there and didn’t see me. I had to either pass on the left and put the truck on its side, or hit her and kill her, or take the risk of going to the right of her into oncoming traffic. I took it to the right and passed her on double yellow lines. Cars coming towards me that saw what was happening pulled to the left and let me through.” Quin caught up with the driver and made his feelings known.
“It is hard for people to understand what sort of situation we are in because they don’t do it,” he says. “We are not out there to be a pain in the arse. We are moving freight around the country.” People say: “All you do all day is sit on your arse. All I’m doing all day is scanning and watching the traffic — that is what tires you out.”
What Quin is trying to say is that, as we go about our job of supporting the tourist industry, truck drivers would appreciate our support in their mission of not killing us. They would like us to be patient, see the road through their eyes, and — as someone once said — be kind.