Truck route a white knuckle ride from Cottesloe to Fremantle

Western Suburbs Weekly reporter Jon Bassett rode with Jayde Transport truck driver Ali Karakoc to deliver 40ft and 20ft containers to Malaga last week.

“Going back to the port, that roundabout is a nightmare because you can’t see the cars coming from the right from Marine Parade, and you pretty much have to come to a dead stop every time,” Mr Karakoc (28) said.

He has driven trucks up to 60 tonne for three years and the route through Cottesloe is where “there’s so much congestion” so deliveries are done outside of rush hours, using two trailers, to reduce the problem.

Minutes from the port, traffic banks up behind Mr Karakoc’s two-trailer truck as it slows to 15km/h at the Walter Place, North Fremantle hairpin bend where another truck rolled in August.

Vehicles pull out in front of the giant vehicle from beach car parks and at Cottesloe’s Curtin Avenue his 27.5m-long truck has to merge into a cycle lane south of the Eric Street bridge.

“That’s when it gets really scary, especially when you’ve got two cyclists side-by-side in their lane,” Mr Karakoc said.

The truck’s load leans towards the footpath as it goes over the steep Eric Street bridge intersection, the vehicle slowing drastically just as the avenue narrows near Grant Street, blocking more traffic. The route opens up at the Servetus Street, Swanbourne cutting and along West Coast Highway through City Beach and Scarborough but traffic banks up behind the increasing numbers of trucks using the route.

North Beach Road and Reid Highway are congested but have dual carriageway road works that may solve why traffic is caught up to 500m behind Mr Karakoc’s truck.

“We’re not allowed to use the freeway, and it is just as quick, if not quicker, to come this way,” Mr Karakoc said.

There is no truck trailer park at Malaga so he leaves his second trailer in a corner of a light industrial area so he can deliver his first container safely.

Traffic faces a street hazard when the second container is lifted on to the empty trailer after the first delivery.

The 45 minutes back to Fremantle Port through Cottesloe takes Mr Karakoc to his third, two-container delivery of the day.