David Ide

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at Reunion 2015.

After completing a cabinet making apprenticeship, David Ide began his truck driving career with his dad Geoff who at the time was sub-contracting to Friendly Car Carrying driving a Dodge Fuso fitted with a 671 GM an d Roadranger Transmission. This was the beginning of his association in the industry which was to span over 30 years.

After a two year period with his father, David did a stint delivering Truck Carrying before Finemores took over. He came off the highway for a short period working at Pioneer Quarries driving heavy machinery such as the dump trucks, excavators and the dozer.

The lure of the highway was calling David and he did a further four years with his dad driving an S Line International carting cars. He was offered and accepted a position with TDG driving a B-double and remained there for 17 years, this took him to every state in Australia.

David also worked for Geoff Lawrence for a three year period before being offered a position with Patricks in 1997 again driving B-doubles doing all long distance work Sydney, Perth Cairns, Broome and later regular trips from Melbourne to Darwin until it ceased in 2014. He now works for Linfox Tanker Division carting fuel in a B-double Mack.

During the that David has spent on the highways of Australia he has witnessed many changes in the transport industry, the roads, the vehicles and the log books just to name a few, however the one that he has is enormous respect and admiration for is the pioneers of the highways and just how hard they did it with the road conditions and some of the trucks they operated.

One particular incident was while David was on his way to Darwin and he stopped at Ti Tree Roadhouse for his break. He was asleep in the cab when he was woken up and advised that the cars on his B-double had been set alight and they were fully alight. David jumped from the cab and was able to quickly pull out from under the trailer and save one car. He had 800 litres of fuel in the tanks and he considered himself lucky. David Kent picked up the burnt out trailers and cars and took them back to Alice Springs.