A.W “Billy” Carr
Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2011.
Billy got his licence late in life at about age 30. After roughly 14 years working in a foundry at various jobs he decided to do what he had always wanted to do, drive trucks. He started driving for the Ford Motor Company in Geelong, Victoria, beginning with semi-trailers, then getting onto the Geelong/Broadmeadows shuttle in a B-double. He did a 5 day heavy vehicle defensive driver course at D.E.C.A. (Driver Education Centre of Australia) whilst there. He finally left Ford after about 6 years.
After moving to W.A. in January 1995, he started work with Finemores Vehicle Transport doing metropolitan deliveries for the first 8 months and then moved onto 2-trailer roadtrain shuttle work doing Mundrabilla changeovers (where he got his nickname 'Mundrabilly'). He did a second 5 day defensive driver course at D.E.C.A. and left Finemores with 7 years notched up. Billy went to G.K.R.Transport next for 3 years doing 2-trailer roadtrain and B-double work anywhere from Perth to Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane. Following that, he did just over a month with a mate driving triple roadtrains to Halls Creek and Kununurra.
Then it was off to the mines at Murrin Murrin working for Brambles Industrial Services which became B.I.S.Industrial Logistics. He started driving the C500 roadtrains with 2 boomerang side tipping trailers and a 150 tonne payload. Then when the C510 Kenworths came on site he drove them with 3 side tipping trailers and 225 tonne of payload! He finished out there in November 2009. As he had got his driving instructor's licence in January 2009, he started work as a driving instructor for Wrightway Road Training as an M.C. instructor in November of that year and a few months later became an M.C. assessor and is still doing this job.To date Billy has driven approximately 5 million kilometres and it has all been accident free over the past 22-25 years.
He says it is now his turn to put something back into the transport industry he has enjoyed and got so much out of. He wants to help teach the next generation of drivers how to do their job defensively and safely.
