GRASSED OUT: Penola farmer Phil Gartner, whose employee was pulled over by SA Transport officers for an unsecured load while crossing a road to feed his sheep. Picture: Mark Brake
Source: News Corp Australia
A COONAWARRA farmer remains bemused at spending an hour arguing with “arrogant” Transport SA inspectors about whether a bale of hay attached to a front-end loader was an “unsecured load”.
Phil Gartner, who has spent his life sheep farming and winemaking in the famed wine region, said he was shocked when Transport SA safety inspectors pulled over an employee after he had driven the loader about 30m across the Riddoch Hwy on Tuesday.
One of the officers claimed the 400kg bale — attached to two forks capable of carrying three tonnes — constituted an unsecured load.
“That bale would never, ever come off. I’d wear out a set of tyres on the loader going across the road before a bale would ever fall off,” Mr Gartner said.
“Like I said to him, ‘how do I tie that on?’ Big farmers have got to feed out 50 of them a day so if they’ve got to go from one side of the road to the other they’ve got to tie every bale.”
One of the Transport SA officers inspects the load.
Mr Gartner, 39, said one of the officers was “arrogant and just not looking at facts”, while the other remained “not really interested”.
“Saying it’s an unsecured load when it’s not tied, no idea what he was talking about because he wasn’t aware there were a set of hay forks in there,” he said.
“I wish I had of asked him how to strap it down and he’d shown me, because whatever we put on there wouldn’t change anything.”
Mr Gartner said the officers then decided not to issue a fine for the “unsecured load” when they discovered the loader was unregistered and issued an expiation notice to the worker.
“I feel sorry for him because he’s just jumped in the loader, mine is registered but it had a flat tyre so we had to use the other one,” he said.
I’m trying to employ people and this poor bloke is going to get hit for a couple of grand — I’ll pay for that because I feel responsible.”
Mr Gartner, who runs his own Terramore winery, said farmers reacted with confusion when he posted the incident on his Facebook account.
“I’ve had farmers say to me ‘are you serious? now we’re in huge trouble’ because they’re worried about driving across the road,” he said.
Mr Gartner said he believed Transport SA should have more important priorities than targeting farmers at lambing and harvest time.
“I’m pretty sure that bloke just hadn’t pulled anyone up for the day and thought here’s an easy case and that’s it,” he said.
“I support the trucking industry, but there is a massive difference between a 50-tonne B-double that’s got bald tyres or the brakes aren’t working and this, and I really think old mate should have just gone past.”
Mr Gartner said he would think twice before using his loaders to help clear roads after high winds and storms.
“I’ve gone down to clear branches and stuff off the road when storms come through to help the area out, well now I’m thinking what do I do? If I pick up a branch off the side of the road is this bloke going to come along and say it’s an unsecured load?,” he said.
“For them to spend an hour on the side of the road talking about a bale of hay on the loader, I’m sure they could have spent their time much better … I ended up laughing in the end, I just said ‘you really are an idiot’ and he drove off.”
Transport SA officers and farmer’s hourlong debate over hay bale leaves Coonawarra man bemused
No comments:
Post a Comment