Bruce Roberts

Bruce Roberts, nicknamed as Lefty, was born 9thSeptember 1950 in Hamilton, Victoria. He has been in the transport industry for 46 years, married to his wife Judy for 41 years and they have two sons, Simon and Matthew who are also both long distance truck drivers.

Lefty's Father bought his first truck in 1948, two years before Lefty was born, his truck was registered as Leo Roberts Long Distance Haulage, operating between Hamilton and Melbourne, a 600km round trip in a petrol engine. Lefty's elder brother John drove trucks, long distance in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

In September 1968 Lefty obtained his truck licence, like his father and brother, he started in the trucking business by working as an offsider to Alf Roberts (no relation) from Hamilton, running to Adelaide in an AB International with a six cylinder petrol engine and a forty foot strapper trailer.

Lefty became a company driver doing flat top work with livestock, refrigeration and tanker work, he has driven Kenworths, Mack's, Volvos, Mercedes, Scania's and Louisville's, travelling the Melbourne to Sydney route, Brisbane, North Queensland, Perth and Darwin. The companies he worked for are Ralphs, Eastoe's, Refrigerated Roadways, Hahns, Toll and Bulkhaul. He has travelled in total 10 million kilometres averaging 250,000 per year.

There have been a few trials and tribulations during his driving career, for example, the changes in the road laws with no uniformity between the Australian States, the break downs, the enormity of fines received for minor clerical errors in his log book and the large amount of time he spent away from home and his family.

Lefty has driven the biggest trucks on the planet, power trailers at the Granites Gold Mine in the Tanami Desert, these huge trucks pulled a body and six trailers grossing 320 tons. The best memories of his time on the road is the mateships he formed with fellow drivers, he is still in contact with blokes from 40 years ago.

Currently, Lefty is driving a float, carting heavy machinery at a gas plant construction in Darwin, he plans to retire from truck driving in September 2015, burnt out and buggered.