Local truck industry 'coping with challenges'
Posted
A south-east New South Wales transport operator says the local trucking industry is coping with the latest challenges from rising fuel prices and changes in government regulations.
A national strike was called on Monday by transport operators in protest at the fuel price rises and new logbook regulations.
However, Bobbin's Transport at Pambula, which is a major carrier of timber, fish and groceries between the far south coast and Sydney and Melbourne, says some of the claims are being exaggerated.
Spokesman Neville Bobbin says well managed companies are coping with the challenges.
"Fuel has not only gone up in Australia, it's all over the world. We have no control over it. We just have to live with it," he said.
"It happened in 1990 and it's happened now and it will probably happen five or six years down the road again.
"Our cost probably with the fuel coverage is somewhere between 14 and 20 per cent, but that's a full semitrailer load and if you add that to a pallet, you break the pallets down it would only be about 1 per cent."
