‘Mind-numbingly stupid’: Truck driver's stunt sparks outrage
Video of a truck driver’s dangerous stunt posted on social media has been slammed by drivers in the industry describing it as “brain dead” and “reckless”.
In the video a truck driver is filming himself as he sits in the passenger seat of a moving truck, while resting both his feet on the dash, he pans the camera to the right to show the driver seat is empty with allegedly nobody controlling the wheel.
“He’s a bit shy ... Yeah mate, we’re the best two-up team. Yeah you’re dead bloody right,” the truck driver can be heard saying in the 50-second long video.
As the truck driver continues to appear to speak to nobody, he brags about how well he can drive. A long stretch of empty road can be seen ahead of the moving truck.
“Keeping it on the road nice and steady, aren’t you buddy?” the driver continues.
“We go good. We’re gonna drive all day and all night, and all day and all night, hey Riggsy? What do you reckon?”
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The video was reportedly shared in a private social media group and leaked publicly to Facebook by another truck driver on August 22.
‘Mind-numbingly stupid’
Executive Officer of the South Australian Road Transport Association, Steve Shearer, said he viewed the footage and was “gobsmacked”.
“It’s not representative of the industry at all and it’s just mind numbingly stupid,” Mr Shearer told Yahoo News Australia.
Although Mr Shearer believes the footage was not filmed in South Australia, he said it was was the most “absurd” footage he had seen in his 26-years in the industry, so much so that he questioned the authenticity of the video.
“For the driver to be sitting in the passengers seat instead of behind the steering wheel in control of the truck, it’s gobsmacking, it makes you wonder whether it’s a bit of a trick with video and not actually real,” he said.
Mr Shearer said the majority of truck drivers were safety-conscious, skilled drivers. He said videos like these added to the unsafe stereotype of truckies.
“Our industry does not need this sort of behaviour because all it does is add to the concern of trucks on the road when in fact we are an incredibly safe industry.
“I know a hell of a lot of people in the industry, from drivers through to owners and I don’t know anybody in the industry who would think it was funny or ok, they would all be horrified,” he told Yahoo News.
Network 7 has reported the police are currently investigating the video and driver.
People viewing the shared footage on social media were less than impressed.
“This is how innocent lives are lost, what a f****** tosser,” one person commented.
“It’s p****s like him that give everyone else in the industry a bad name,” a user replied.
Yahoo News Australia contacted the alleged truck driver’s employer who refused to comment publicly about the incident.
The person who leaked the video on social media said not all truck drivers are doing the wrong thing on Aussie roads.
“It’s hard enough in this industry for people like my father and others without people doing stupid s**t like this,” he said.
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