Regional fuel transporter, Lowes Petroleum, is now awarding drivers who have gone above and beyond in their duties and for the business.
With more than 250 drivers delivering millions of litres of fuel every year to country Australia, Lowes Petroleum’s General Manager of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Bernie Morris said the company had been looking for a way to acknowledge the professionalism of their drivers.
Morris said when the company backed the Australian Road Safety Foundation’s, annual national awareness campaign, Rural Road Safety Month, the logical next step was the inaugural award.
“Every day we are receiving comments from customers and the public to ‘stop and go’ traffic people about our driver’s professionalism and this was the perfect way to acknowledge this,” he said.
Lowes Petroleum drivers commit to best-practice standards. The inaugural winners exhibited both a professional attitude and behaviours in every aspect of their job. They are highly regarded amongst peers and customers and are drivers who have gone above and beyond in their duties, as a driver and for the business.
With operations across Australia’s east coast and Tasmania, five awards were presented to drivers from the company’s key regional operations including:
- David Gibson, Far North Queensland, Townsville, region one.
- Wal Giddins, Western Queensland, Miles, region two.
- Roger Hint, New South Wales, Dubbo, region three.
- John Hotker, Victoria, Horsham, region four.
- Graeme Stokes, Tasmania, region five.
Collectively the drivers chalk up more than 100 years of truck driving experience.
With three decades on the road, Hotker said Lowes Petroleum drivers committed to not only delivering the fuel safely to primary producers and regional businesses but also being vigilant about tank safety.
Speaking for the winners, Hotker said all the drivers developed relationships with their customers – from taking responsibility to ensure gates are opened, then closed properly to keeping livestock safe to bringing in a few essential items to farms isolated by flood.
“We are urging drivers over Christmas to slow down, don’t drive fatigued and, with many regional areas now experiencing flood, never try to drive through roads covered with water,” he said.
“It’s not the depth that presents the risk, but you could get halfway across and a bank breaks upstream sending a wall of water that could wash your vehicle into the river.
“The lockdowns of Covid made you really appreciate being on the open road. The fact we get to deliver to a variety of people, sharing the ups and downs of living in regional Australia – all the while getting a bird’s eye view of the country from my cab.”