I’m an Aussie truck driver and there’s one common driving act that’s guaranteed to make me lose it: These are the dark secrets of the job

There is one type of driver that is guaranteed to cause a truck driver to lose it.

For seven years, Aaron Farquhar has driven past endless and unforgiving stretches of bitumen, but he took the time to drive his semi-trailer to reveal the highs and lows of a truck driver’s life, including the most annoying things on the road.

“You’re driving on a single-lane road and it’s a 100km/h zone and the car in front of you is doing 90km/h, but when the passing lane comes up and you go to overtake, they speed up to 100,” Mr Farquhar said.

‘As soon as that passing lane ends, they slow down again.

“I think it’s because they don’t want to go faster, but they don’t want to be behind us either, but that’s what causes accidents.”

“You hear truckers going crazy on the radio and I feel sorry for it because I see it all the time.”

Caravan drivers were the most common offenders.

Mr Farquhar, who drives about 5000km a week between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and occasionally from Melbourne to Adelaide, said he was amazed at the reckless behavior of road users.

“This morning on Logan Freeway I had a truck next to me and we were going about 70 km/h in some traffic and a motorcycle went right through the middle of us,” he said.

‘It scared me to death.

“The other truck driver may have pushed his trailer towards me with a little bit of wind and then clipped the handlebars of the bike, and next thing you know it’s under our tires.”

Mr Farquhar said he sees a “very serious” truck accident every fortnight and sometimes every week.

“Next to the military, I believe truck driving is the most dangerous industry in Australia,” he said.

Mr Farquhar travels approximately 5,000km during each 80-hour week, driving between major east coast capitals and Adelaide

‘There are many accidents where you don’t hear of many people dying.’

As to which state had the worst roads, Mr Farquhar gave that dubious honor to Victoria, at least for the stretches with which he is most familiar.

Last year, 49 truck drivers were killed in crashes on Australia’s highways by 2023, equating to almost one fatality per week.

Mr Farquhar said he saw much of the carnage on the road, including images that haunted him.

“About two years ago near Port Macquarie I was coming south and this truck crashed into a large barrier quite significantly from the left,” he said.

“I think he bounced off and the truck flipped over and he flipped and spun around. They had tarps and stuff to cover it, but I saw them pull his body out of the windshield.”

Mr Farquhar (pictured with partner Dani) says driving a military truck may be Australia’s most dangerous activity

However, that wasn’t the scariest thing he’s experienced.

“I was driving past Narellan where I saw a dead kangaroo splattered all over the road,” he said.

‘It turned out that it was a dead body of a man that was constantly being driven over.

‘From what I understand it was suicide. He threw himself in front of a truck, but the driver had no idea, he thought it was just a kangaroo.

‘The driver got it charged and lost everything.”

The trucking industry has been accused of endangering road safety by pushing drivers to work dangerously long hours to meet delivery schedules, and Mr Farquhar did not dispute that this is happening.

“A lot of accidents where people go off the side of the road, which is the majority of accidents, I think it’s fatigue and exhaustion,” he said.

‘There are companies that push their drivers and say, “Go, go, you have to get there, you have to get there.”’

Last year, an average of one truck driver was killed per week on Australian roads (photo from an accident in Melbourne in 2022)

Mr Farquhar said the company he worked for, PrixCar, did not do this.

“My company, they take care of us. They take care of our safety, they take care of our health and mental health along the way,” he said.

‘If you don’t make it due to fatigue and you’re tired, that’s fine.

“When you start to get tired, pull up and get the rest you need.”

Mr Farquhar became a semi-driver because he wasn’t happy with the pay he was getting while driving refrigerated trucks around the NSW city of Wollongong.

Perhaps surprisingly, it only takes one day of training to get a license to drive semi-trucks, but applicants must already be qualified to drive medium-duty trucks.

“My partner has often asked me, ‘I don’t know how you drive that big thing, how do you do that?’” Mr Farquhar said.

“I always say that when you get your driver’s license for your car, you panic, and that’s how we were when we first got our truck license.”As time goes by, you get the experience and feel of the truck

A map of where truck drivers died in fatal crashes on Australian roads last year

“I can take my truck to some places where people would panic if they came with their car, and that just comes down to your instincts and reflexes that come naturally.

‘Reversing with a semi-trailer is, if you have the space, a lot easier than reversing with a car trailer.

Mr Farquhar, who lives in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Minto, works an average of five 80-hour days a week, which he says his body is “accustomed to”.

For this, he earns about $130,000 a year, calculated at a rate of about 50 to 55 cents per mile.

“If you translate that into the hours you put in, it’s nothing extravagant,” Mr Farquhar said, noting that 80 hours is the equivalent of two full-time jobs.

He said his partner, Dani, understood why he was away from home so often, “to help his family move forward.”

Although Mr Farquhar believes that the larger transport companies such as LinFox or Toll pay their drivers well, this may not be the case for smaller companies.

“I’ve heard of companies paying next to nothing,” he said.

Mr Farquhar said it was difficult for him to break into the trucking industry, but it was made a lot easier due to the driver shortage.

“Most people are taken care of, but there may be drivers who are paid in cash.”

Mr Farquhar had found it difficult to break into the industry without experience, but he said it “became a lot easier”.

“There are a lot of driver jobs, 95 percent of companies can’t get enough drivers, so it seems like they are lowering standards,” he said.

The shortage is partly met by Indian drivers with a temporary work visa.

“Part of my social media is also trying to get truck drivers talking to each other and becoming a community because a truck cab out here on the road is the loneliest place a person can be,” he said.

‘Many truck drivers are single and many marriages fail because the partners cannot cope with the lifestyle.’

According to Mr Farquhar, the stereotype of ‘the big, tough truck driver who picks fights, cheats on his partners and visits brothels is being phased out.

Mr Farquhar said his partner Dani (pictured right) understood he needed to be on the road to earn enough money to help his family

“We don’t have time for that,” he said

“There are a lot of truck drivers who are tattooed and don’t put up with any fuss, but they’re not looking for a fight, they’re the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.”

However, there were still sex workers who specialized in truck clients.

Mr. Farquhar said he was sleeping in his truck at a lodging center one night when something woke him up

“You know, when you hear a noise and you wake up and you think, ‘Did I hear that or did I dream it,’ but I went back to bed,” Farquhar said.

‘When I got up the next morning I went outside to talk to the truck driver next to me, who also just got up and got a cup of coffee and I said, “I fucking woke up to a knock on my truck, I’m probably going crazy.”

“And he said, ‘No, that’s a prostitute at a truck stop.’

“He said they’re not as common as they used to be, but they do come by and knock on your truck. If you don’t answer, they move on to the next one.’

‘I’ve seen a few when I’ve driven past, but they just seem like normal women, they don’t have the stereotypical look of a sex worker.’

As for what keeps his mind active during the long hours staring at highways, Mr Farquhar listens to podcasts from Joe Rogan, Kyle and Jackie O, but sometimes just drives in silence.

At other times, however, modern technology allows him to socialize with other truck drivers.

“I have conference calls with four or five drivers, one in Victoria, one in Adelaide and we just joke around,” he said.

‘It’s good for your mental health, it keeps you awake, you have a good laugh, you talk about the industry and what you’ve seen today.’