Big trouble B-double

A JUNCTION Village truck driver will face court after allegedly being caught drink-driving at more than four times the legal limit behind the wheel of a B-double prime mover on Tuesday night.
The 55-year-old man was intercepted by police just after 10pm on the Princes Freeway, Warragul, after members of the public contacted triple zero about his erratic driving.
Police intercepted the prime mover near the Drouin overpass and the driver returned a positive breath test.
He was taken to a police station where he allegedly returned an evidentiary breath test of 0.195 per cent, police said.
The man’s licence was immediately suspended.
He is expected to be charged on summons with various offences including reckless conduct endangering a person, drink-driving, dangerous driving and failing to comply with work diary requirements.
State Highway Patrol Inspector David Griffin said the behaviour was really disappointing.
“It’s more than four times over the legal limit for him, as driving a heavy vehicle that exceeds 12 tonnes is actually zero,” he said.
“When he got out of the truck he was in a pretty bad way.
“I’ve spoken to police who attended the scene and they said he was very difficult to talk to and he could only stand with the assistance of the police.
“There were at least six calls phone to triple zero reporting that this person was driving all over the road, very erratically, nearly collided with other vehicles, trucks and cars, and knocked over signage when he was leaving a service station.”
Insp Griffin said it was lucky nothing worse happened.
“The vehicle he was driving was a B-double, which maxes out at about 68 tonnes and the vehicle was loaded at that time,” he said.
“That’s a real concern for us.
“These vehicles are very big and very heavy and any impact with them is certainly catastrophic.”
Insp Griffin applauded the members of the public who called in and alerted police.
“It just goes to show that not only the police but also the community don’t accept this sort of driver behaviour,” he said.
“We certainly encourage members of the community, when they see things going on our roads that are unsafe and not acceptable to please phone and police will take action.”