A day in the life of a truck driver …

TRUCK DRIVERS often pick up more flak than
cargo in a profession not respected as a profession. The skilled driver shortage
puts inexperienced drivers behind the wheel
and truckers all round in front of the finger at
accident scenes. FTW's Mark Jackson-Moss rides
shotgun with Cedric Seroba from Concord
Logistics for a closer look. 05h00 Cedric boards
a train from Tembisa to City Deep. After looking
through the first deliveryorder for the day over
a cup of coffee, Cedric spends twenty minutes
on the pre-trip inspection of the triaxle he will drive that day.
08h25 Arriving at the Grindrod Container depot
in City Deep, Cedric hands in his order for the box hiding beyond the entry gate. Ten minutes later, he drives through well-formed
potholes filled with water to the back of the queue. Cedric waits his turn
for the only operations stacker-crane to load his
box. “You can’t go to them when you are waiting. They will tell you they know their job. It doesn’t make them go any faster,” Cedric
says.
The truck behind us almost falls over trying to
join the queue as it turns through a pothole. “That was close. His whole side
was off the ground.”
09h20 Cedric leaves the depot for his client in
Alberton North. “I have always liked driving. I get to see many places, but when the truck is not
moving, it can be very boring.”
10h20 Arriving at the client, Cedric goes off to
find the receiving manager.
It takes twenty minutes for the client’s staff to
finish their morning tea before the seals are broken and the forklift is brought
round.
It takes an hour to unload all of the1 tonne
bags from the twenty foot container, in which time Cedric has checked the condition of his tyres, and returned from buying a
cold drink from the nearby Spar.
11h50 The empty container is dropped off at
the depot.
“Today was a good day. We didn’t have to wait
too long at the depots, and traffic was not so
bad. I will get in one more delivery before the depots close at 4 o’clock,” says
Cedric.
“In this business, you have to be quick, but you
also have to take your time. Be quick where you
can be, and slow around corners. If you have an
accident, it won’t matter how quick you were.
“Many younger people who start out driving
bakkies or four tonners see heavy truck driving
as their next step,” says
Cedric. “But then you have to go cross-border, which means a month away from
the family. I get home at eight-thirty, and I already don’t see very much of my
children. It’s not easy on them.
“Cars also need to realise that a truck is a heavy vehicle, and it needs a lot
of time to stop. A lot of accidents are caused by
trucks trying to prevent an accident,” says Cedric.
“We have lives and families, this job is too
important to lose. There is always pressure to deliver, but time is not with us
most days because the roads make us drive slowly.
We do what we can to get the cargo there, and time becomes number two.”