Grey nomad Peter Mills has just returned from a six-month tour of northern Australia … but the hugely successful trip nearly had a terrible sting in the tale.
Peter and his wife were heading back to Canberra just as the quarantine rules were relaxing. and they planned to end to their adventures with a relaxing drive along the Snowy Mountains Highway from Tumut to Cooma, and a final camp at Three Mile Dam in Koscuiszko National Park.
As they left Tumut towing their narrow-body AOR Matrix caravan with a 4WD Mazda BT50, they were feeling pretty good … but that didn’t last long. They headed up the Talbingo Hill to Black Perry Lookout, which Peter says rises about 600 metres vertically over around eight kilometres and has approximately a dozen hairpin bends.
Peter had a great time touring northern Australia
And that’s where things got scary.
“At this time, and for the next several years due to Snowy 2.0 construction, there may be 50 to 100 truck movements on the narrow section of road seven days a week,” said Peter. “Many of these trucks are ‘truck and dog trailer’ or B-Double trailer trucks and, when descending this hill, most are empty, are familiar with the road, and moving at what I consider a speed where the drivers are generally unable to maintain the rear trailer wheels within their side of the road.”
Peter said he was climbing the hill pretty slowly in second or third gear at the time.
“We were forced off the road running surface into deep rocky gutters by trucks with rear trailers well (30-50cm) over the double centre line on two hairpin bends,” he said. “It was not possible to see the trucks coming in advance of four or five seconds due to their speed and the vertical rock walls on the inside of the hairpin bends.”
There was apparently barely space for the Mills’s narrow-body caravan to pass the trucks. Thankfully though, their All Terrain tyres could ‘ride out’ the steep and deep gutter next to the rock wall.
“There was no time to stop,” Peter said. “The awning on the caravan only just missed the rock wall, and the rear trailers of the two descending trucks narrowly missed the driver’s side.”
He is now warning other grey nomads that this road is extremely dangerous for full-width caravans, and that many trucks will be using this section of road for some time to come.
“If my caravan was full width we would have been hit by the truck or banged into the rock walls,” writes Peter. “Be very wary driving the Snowy Mountains Highway for the next few years.”
I hope you reported this to the police. The truck drivers have a responsibility for safe driving and should be reported to the construction company involved, via the police and or Heavy vehicle authorities.
As a Roadtrain driver I will tell you that it is physically impossible to always keep your trailer wheels in one lane. What do you propose we do? And who are you to determine what is ‘safe driving’ when you have only the caravan driver’s side of this story. From my many years driving heavy vehicles I can tell you that most caravanners wouldn’t know within 600mm where the left side of their caravan is. And you’re trying to tell us how to do our job?
You didn’t need to start with “As a road train driver … “. Your reply is only concerned with defending the truck driver and you assume the caravan driver doesn’t know how to drive so everyone knows you’re truck driver. Anyone with common sense understands the longer the vehicle, the less it is able to stay within its lane on a corner. If you took the time to read and understand the original comments, you’d understand the issue was not the length (truck and dog), but the speed. The issue is that many of these trucks (and its not usually the long haulers but the city truck and dogs) drive at excessive speed because they have a time table to meet (that’s the usual excuse) and put everyone else’s life and/or vehicle at risk. The faster the vehicle travels, the more it needs to cut the corner (straighten it out). Its the speed to meet conditions that most of these mud carters ignore and you, as an experienced large vehicle driver, should understand and also condemn.
Paul. I also drive B Doubles and if you slow down you can control your rig. What you are saying makes all truck drivers look useless mate. Slow down and drive your rig appropriately to the conditions mate.
the road is to share,and no one has mentioned cb radio???no radio no tow.
I agree, I have tried to call up caravaners numerous times and can’t get an answer.the number of times I have contacted a truck driver to let him or her know I know they are behind me,and when safe I ask if they want to pass. The truckies appreciate the call I think.
I was planning to use that hway.soon. Cooma to Kiandra
What part of the Snowy Highway are the trucks active?
Was going to go that way to Mystery Bay with a 7.9 m RV towing a Suzuki but glad I read this – no way now!
This is why everybody who uses that road should have a CB radio and listen to the trucks when they call up. You should call up and let them know that you are travelling up or down the mountain at the numbered intervals. I tow a full size caravan up and down that mountain and we have had no troubles passing other heavily loaded trucks either up or down the mountain.
I agree with Brian. It was the suggestion I was going to make.
On the logging roads around Delegate NSW there are numbered roadside signs every kilometre and the protocol requires truck drivers to radio ahead on UHF Channel 40 every time they pass one of these signs. This is a practice that could be adopted for the Snowy Highway. I certainly monitor and radio ahead when I’m in logging country with my vehicle and caravan.
On the subject of UHF radios, I think every caravanner should be required to use a UHF radio and have Channel 40 monitored for messages. A recently reported incident on the Princes Highway section along the Coorong in SE South Australia where a back up of over fifteen vehicles stuck behind a caravan travelling at 80 KPH or less could have been possibly overcome by the front driver being alerted to the issue and prompted to safely pull over. This illustrates my point.
I said Channel 40 should be monitored, rather than listened to fulltime, as many people refuse to use this channel, because of the occasional ‘fruitiness’ of the language on it. A possible need for protocol education within the industry and amongst UHF users.
Of course, this raises the issue of whether a special licence should be required for caravan drivers. A definite yes in my book, given the general ignorance and ‘head in the sand’ approach around safe towing, trailer weights, sway control, etc.
Avoid the road between Rolleston and Monto in qld. I have NEVER travelled on a rougher road. Towing a van over 80 kls per hr was in my opinion extremely dangerous. Avoid it .
Thanks, we were headed that way in our Motorhome which is 2.4mt. Wide but after reading your post will give it a miss.