TRADIE TRAFFIC

If you are unfortunate enough to be on the road between 5am and 7am and not tucked up in bed catching ‘just another hour’ before your day begins then brace yourself. It’s ‘Tradie Traffic’ time and it’s a case of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’!  Tradesman of all type. Their age, gender, ethnicity or type of truck doesn’t define them as say plumbers, carpenters, gyprockers, concreters and the like. Their uniform of HI VIZ through the cabin window says TRADIE loud and clear and I’m coming through! Tradies have it down to a fine art you might think. More often than not, they have sneaked out of bed, not really as quietly as they could do mind, at the last possible minute, showered, grabbed the esky full of a carefully packed lunch, grabbed the keys and hopped to the truck whilst trying to put their boots on as they go. They fire the truck up and rummage around for loose change whilst at the same time the phone gets hooked up and the seatbelt on. Quick stop at the drive through coffee house and they are off.

The suburban roads are not too bad for us ‘ordinary’ people if we know our place. In the inside lane is where we travel along minding our road manners, traffic signals, right turns, you name it, we do the best we can without hopefully getting in the way of TRADIE TRAFFIC. The other lane, TRADIE LANE, well, don’t go there unless you want to have a few more silver highlights in your hair when you arrive at your destination.

They are on a mission. Coffee in one hand, steering wheel in the other, noise on the radio, lights on high beam. It’s all an automatic ritual. No need for gear stick changes as the trucks, especially the utilities, are all automatic anyway.

No need to understand about preparing to drop a gear, get the revs right and shoot off. None of that stuffy old business. “What a waste of time that is”. Just point and shoot is what they seem to do with their heavy boots.  And my goodness, if you dare to tackle the Freeway during TRADIE TRAFFIC just get used to holding your breath until you arrive at your destination. Every size of truck you can possibly imagine is out. They weave, cut in, foot down, brake hard, push over, flash lights but they seem to know just when and how and where without any problem. They have it down to a tee whilst you gripping on for dear life and run with them.

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