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Residents living on the main street of a small country town say they are "at their wits' end" after years of truck drivers waking them up and urinating on their lawns.
Key points:
- Holbrook residents say they are being abused by truck drivers outside their homes
- The local council is trialling a ban on truckies stopping overnight on the main street
- Road Freight NSW says the truck stop at Holbrook is not big enough
Holbrook, in the NSW Riverina, is about halfway between Melbourne and Sydney, making it a popular spot for truck drivers to pull over to rest and swap trailers.
But the only truck stop in the town can only accommodate about a dozen B-doubles, which forces other trucks to park in front of houses along the main drag, Albury Street.
Resident Bruce Quick said entire households regularly woke up in the middle of the night due to "very noisy" truck changeovers, before looking outside to see drivers urinating on their fences and lawns.
"It's just disgraceful behaviour," Mr Quick said.
"Some small children observed a man urinating in full streetlight basically through their bedroom window — this is just not acceptable."
Residents have also returned home to find their driveways blocked, which has led to multiple verbal confrontations with the truck drivers.
"They definitely do not talk to you in a normal tone of voice — they are always aggressive," Holbrook resident Gail Chynoweth said.
Overnight ban
Greater Hume Council plans to trial new parking restrictions along the southern half of Albury Street due to the complaints.
Trucks will be banned from parking along the road between 9pm and 7am, with signage warning them they will be fined by police if the new rules are breached.
"With the distress the residents are under, we had to take some action and that's what we decided to do," the council's director of engineering, Greg Blackie, said.
The council plans to discuss a long-term solution, such as the construction of a larger truck stop, with Transport for NSW.
"There's no point if we do [the restrictions] in one area and they just move to another area," Mr Blackie said.
"No doubt we need a purpose-built truck parking and changeover area ... but it needs some significant civil works and other works associated, which is not cheap."
'Concerning' reports
Road Freight NSW chief executive Simon O'Hara said reports of truck drivers urinating along Albury Street were concerning.
He said the incidents highlighted the importance of truck drivers having adequate facilities.
"We don't have enough rest areas and when we do have rest areas they're not big enough," Mr O'Hara said.
"We understand the rest stop area in Holbrook is full.
"Truckies are being left with no choice but to pull over and try to not only rest, but also use facilities and do a changeover."
Mr O'Hara said the last thing the trucking community wanted was to put residents in a position where they had to make complaints.