Highway Advocates: In Trouble with the Law? Who ya gonna call?

In-depth

19 June

DSC00066 1 Adam, Robert and Caroline.jpg

No pretty pictures, lots of words. But if you’ve ever had a fine in a truck, it is in your interest to read this…

Long-distance truckies drive roughly 20 times more kilometres per year than a light vehicle. That’s a 20 times greater chance of picking up a fine. And when you do get fined, the costs are magnified by around 20 times as well. So how long before you build up maximum demerit points? About 20 times more quickly would be my guess.

More often than not you are guilty - but to what extent? Or perhaps there is a lawful excuse or exception that gets you off the hook. Either way, there are often ways to reduce the fine to nothing, and even escape conviction.

Robert Bell was a truck driver, like many others, following his dream of being behind the wheel. That dream lost its attraction when he realised that in the eyes of the law, truckies were easy game.

“I spent a big part of my life driving trucks and fought more than a couple of my own matters in court. I came out of them with my tail between my legs. Some time ago I thought, if you can’t beat them, join them - I have to learn the law to fight the law.”

Meantime Adam Cockayne was a lawyer who’d been involved in challenging fines on behalf of ordinary members of the public for some five years. Why did Adam get involved with trucks and truckies?

“It wasn’t a lifelong passion that’s for sure. At least it wasn’t until Robert rang me up to talk about the trucking industry and I realised that the same issues prevail there – in fact it’s worse because people’s livelihoods were being taken away for minor transgressions. We decided we could do something together.”

So Adam and Robert formed an incorporated legal practice called Highway Advocates which deals solely with truck drivers. “We don’t do family law, we don’t do personal injuries, we don’t do civil litigation - we deal exclusively with road transport legislation.”

Robert got out from behind the wheel of his truck and is now a law undergraduate, on his way to being a lawyer, and acts under the supervision of Adam. “When I’m appearing in court, quite often I get leave to appear as a Paralegal, or a Lay Associate as they are known in New South Wales. That means the court grants me to leave to appear on behalf of the defendant.

“Once I have that leave I stand up an advocate for them, effectively as fully-fledged lawyer – in practice, if not in name. Our advantage is that I can advocate for truck drivers because I’ve been there; I know what goes on. I know these guys have families and aspirations and I know that they’re not criminals. I know for the most part they simply made a mistake.

“Sometimes though, they haven’t and that brings up another point. Most of the time when I go to court on behalf the truck driver it’s to plead guilty. Some people may say what’s the point of going to court and pleading guilty? I may as well just pay the fine. But that’s just not true.

“The courts and the legislation treat truck driver’s previous prosecutions very seriously. They never go away and are always taken into account when a court is considering a sentence or a fine. I would say to the industry that every point is precious and every fine should be fought, because if you just let it go and pay the fine - which will show up on your history - the next time you turn up it’s going to make life even harder for you.”

**I got to meet Adam & Rob at the Brisbane Show. The industry needs this type of representation**

Under common law in Australia, if you plead guilty at the earliest opportunity you’re entitled to at least a 25% discount on the penalty that the court would normally have imposed if you hadn’t pleaded guilty. That doesn’t mean you get a 25% discount on the maximum penalty, it means you get 25% off the fine you would have gotten otherwise.

Simplified, let’s say for the sake of the argument that the maximum fine for a particular offence is $10,000, and the normal or average fine is in the range of $3000 for a first offence. Pleading guilty gets $750 off that straight away. Good representation by a lawyer who knows the industry may reduce the imposed fine even further, sometimes to no penalty at all.

“The opportunity arises when you plead guilty, to talk to the court about the subjective and mitigating circumstances. Did you mean to do it? Was there any sort of safety risk, or risk to the community, and what you did to avoid/minimize that risk?

“There’s quite a raft of issues around that,” said Robert. “Subjective issues like the defendant’s family and life, financial circumstances, the factors behind any previous prosecutions or the ability to pay a fine. We also talk about the fact that the system is so unfairly weighted against truck drivers. All these factors and more can make a real difference to the sentence you may get.

“For instance, if the court decides to extend leniency and puts the defendant on a two-year bond, it means for those two years you must not commit any other offence. If you do the original sentence will be recalled. Now, that’s no different to what could happen to the driver of a car doing the average 15 -20,000kms per year.

“For a Truckie though, it’s the equivalent of putting a car driver on a 30 to 40 year bond, saying you must drive for 40 years without committing an offence. It is manifestly unfair.” We object that to that, offering alternatives to the Court that even the balance somewhat.

There is a common misconception around that it is easier and cheaper to pay a fine rather than take a week off work with the associated cost to travel to court across the country.

This is incorrect. If you plead guilty, and are legally represented, you do not have to attend court unless ordered otherwise. Sometimes it is on your best interest to attend but is it not mandatory.

“So if you’re a truck driver in Townsville and you get booked in Shepparton that would be a week or more of lost earnings and travel time. We can do that all for you whilst you keep working.

“It’s a trust thing. It means the client places their trust in us to save their license and we treat that trust very, very carefully.”

Highway Advocates are based in Melbourne (Adam) and Brisbane (Robert) but will appear in all states. Thanks to Covid the courts use AVL (Virtual Link) technology routinely, where the guys can appear in court from a screen in their offices.

“It allows us to keep our costs down and we can pass them on to our clients. Obviously we are not a free service, and no one would expect us to be, but we try and keep the costs well below what most conventional legal practices would charge. We don’t charge by six minute increments like some, for instance

“Normally a client comes to us, we give them an appraisal and tell them what we think is the best course of action – be it a defended hearing or pleading guilty with submissions. We’ll give them a letter of advice which explains the situation and then, if they agree, comes the cost disclosure. Up to that point it costs them nothing to talk about their offence and get some advice on it.”

**Not a truckie’s favourite ‘rest’ stop**

One of the skills of being a successful advocate is in not only being able to talk and argue oral submissions, but being able to put them down on paper in an understandable way, so that the Magistrate - and it’s important to reiterate here that many Magistrates struggle to keep up, and cannot be expected to be around the enormous amount of legislation pertaining to heavy vehicles - can see it all before him/her in black and white. Usually the Magistrate’s had a chance to read it beforehand and maybe, if you’re lucky, have a pre-formed opinion or conception about the way it is going to go. Highway Advocates draft these submissions in order to steer that opinion in the positive towards the defendant. Then, in the courtroom, they expand on that submission.

Adam and Robert work jointly on, and drafting the submissions. “I know Robert has been praised by magistrates for the quality of his representation,” said Adam. “So I know he has all the great skills necessary to achieve positive outcomes - and that is what we’re achieving.

“The bottom line is that with just about every client we’ve had to date, there have been circumstances around the offence that in some areas have been quite disgraceful. There are defects in what the Prosecuting Authorities are doing. Truckies are being charged with the wrong offences and offences that don’t even exist. It has to stop!”

There is a 24 hour number where you can contact the guys but they’ve asked to please not ring at 2am just because you’re bored and want to have a chat. That said, if it’s serious, give them time to get out of bed and grab a coffee. If you’re in serious trouble it’s best to contact them ASAP, before it all turns to crap.

“What I would say to all truck drivers’ is don’t wait until the last minute before you contact us. It’s a lot easier to deal with the matter before we have to unravel what’s already been done before you spoke to us.” That 24/7 number is 0491 263 602.

Highway Advocates are on Facebook and the Web at www.highwayadvocates.com.au

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