Peter “Sparrow” Bennet

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame in 2019.

Peter Bennet, known as Sparrow, was born in Melbourne in 1952. His first job was driving a Bedford for FH Stephens as a local driver. After that his next job was interstate for MacPhees, which he says; "taught me much about loading for efficiency and tarping".

Being a young driver he was surprised to be hired by East Coast Transport and driving the Melbourne-Sydney-Adelaide-Melbourne which he did for three years. Peter's next job with Express Freight, driving a 1418 Mercedes Benz came to an end when the company was taken over by United. Peter then went to Mayne Nickless driving a Kenworth towing refrigerated. Always looking for the perfect job saw Peter work for Crosby's Transport in Sydney driving various types of trucks including a Kenworth 871 and an Atkinson with an 8V92T. It meant "more power and quicker times" he said.

Peter's worse trip was when decimal came in and he set the refrigeration to Fahrenheit instead of Celsius and cooked a load of meat. His funniest experience was when he gave a tow to a family who had run out of fuel as he was coming out of Brisbane and forgot he had them still chained on until he heard a fellow truckie comment over the CB to his mate that, "This bloke is having a go" his mate replied "Just look at the Chevrolet Impala trying to overtake him" he realised he still had them on tow. Slowing down and stopping at the next service station he was faced with the driver and his wife white as ghosts but the kids thought it great fun and wanted to do it all over again.

Peter has had many different jobs over the years in many different companies with lots of varied loads. The last company he worked for was Viking Transport. At the time, family commitments saw him working part time and casual.

Now happily retired after forty seven years in trucking, Peter now has time to catch up with mates and reminisce about the fun of life on the road and those no longer around.