00:00Taylor Connelly's business runs 26 Prime Movers across rural and regional Queensland.
00:07When you leave here, you just want to head up the road up to high range.
00:12She's very familiar with the state of the roads.
00:15So what we're finding is that a lot of the roads in far north Queensland especially are continuing to deteriorate.
00:22With drives like this, vehicle maintenance can be a big expense.
00:28Our bonnets are fiberglass so any sort of corrugation or shaking will create damage there.
00:35There's obviously suspension as well which on some of the rougher roads in Queensland we do see quite a lot of damage too.
00:41Keeping trucks roadworthy is a must for the company.
00:44There doesn't appear to be the same requirement statewide for the government to provide us with roads that are safe to travel on for our vehicles.
00:53The RACQ says its members are constantly complaining about poor road surfaces.
00:59What that does is cause damage to tyres, suspensions, windscreens, all adding to cost of travelling on Queensland roads.
01:08Every year the Department of Transport and Main Roads calculates the cost of what it calls capital renewal investment needs.
01:16It takes into account the rehabilitation, resealing and resurfacing of road pavements as well as structures such as bridges.
01:24As of 12 months ago there was $8.6 billion in outstanding renewal and maintenance works.
01:30About $800 million more than the year before.
01:34It's road users who pay the price so they pay the price through either greater congestion or they pay the price through vehicle damage.
01:41That's the reality of these maintenance backlogs.
01:44The Transport Minister says the State needs to do better maintaining existing assets.
01:50Politicians love building new things and it's important that we do build new infrastructure.
01:54But it's really important that we maintain what we have as well.
01:57RACQ surveys of members support that.
02:01Our members are less interested in shiny and new.
02:04The length of impacted road has reduced in recent years but Brent Mickleberg has vowed to get on top of the growing cost of outstanding works.
02:13My task is to stabilise that increase year on year and then hopefully start to turn the curve and reduce the backlog over time.
02:20We'd like to see roadworthy roads for roadworthy vehicles.
02:23We will August 24.
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