ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Betoota Heights was once a sleepy, treeless enclave on our town’s fringe. Scorched by day and frozen by night. A part of our desert community that’s far from the cosmopolitan heart of the French Quarter and Old City District. It’s steeped in little history, the oldest building is the shopping centre with ‘1997’ stamped in Roman numerals atop the clock tower. Price Harry got put to sleep at the Betoota Heights Tavern by two red-headed twins during his 2003 Central Queensland odessey at Tooloombilla. Betoota Heights is beset on all sides by arterial roads and state forest that yet to be rezoned into light residential. It’s where you get a go.
That might be part of the reason why local truck driver Damien Munro thinks the ‘Please Limit Compression Braking’ halfway down the Grey Range Road applies to every other truck driver besides him.
The 41-year-old told The Advocate today that it doesn’t matter what time of day it is – or if he’s got a load on or not. He’ll still flick the jake brake on and let the engine crawl down the hill.
Our reporter spoke to him this morning at a quarter to six in the morning as Damien pulled into the Betoota Heights British Petroleum to fuel up.
After hearing the gurgling wail of his road train coming from a couple miles away, our reporter was curious as to why Damien feels entitled enough to wake up thousands of people each morning
“Oh that sign,” he said.
“Yeah I know it’s there to try and limit the noise but sometimes it’s just safer to use the jake brake. I’m putting my safety first here. It must be for the other truck drivers who have the time and money to spend on buying and changing brake pads,”
“That’s just life. I mean, the road was there before the house? You don’t like listening to jake brakes at 3am then get a better job and buy another house!”
When The Advocate suggested that perhaps the sign applied to Damien as well as other truck drivers on the road, he just shrugged and said he didn’t care.
More to come.
