Truck drivers put on notice after safety blitz

Yahoo!7 Updated November 15, 2012, 6:00 pm

Truck drivers have been put on notice with a safety blitz in Adelaide’s northern suburbs uncovering an alarming amount of breaches.

More than half of the drivers were slapped with fines or warnings, mostly for carrying unsecure loads.

Transport Safety Officers swooped on trucks leaving the Pooraka depot of the Adelaide Produce Market, acting on a tip-off.

“What they are doing on many occasions is they have curtain-sided vehicles, they’re just pulling the curtains back and not restraining the load in any way,” safety officer Yolanda Gower said.

A total of 45 trucks were inspected as part of yesterday’s Operation Fruit Fall.

Of those, 23 were fined or cautioned, and two trucks were defected.

The Transport Safety Department has warned that this is just a taste of things to come, with similar blitzes over the summer set to target freight trucks at depots and on highways across the state.

Yesterday’s operation was the latest in an ongoing assault on the trucking industry, with others nabbing drivers on drugs and finding trucks with modified speed limiters.

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