Story by: Jim Wilson, Australia Correspondent @ FreightWaves

It has been a dramatic week in Australian trucking. A truck driver has been jailed for being high – both metaphorically AND literally – during in a big truck crash. There was the tragic case of a strip club driver dying in a head-on crash with a truck. And then there was the curious incident of the cattle hoofing it down a main motorway in Melbourne. On the positive front, a massive inspection campaign has found the vast majority of Australian truckers are legally compliant.

Trucker Minh Thien Ho, 30, has been handed a jail term of nine months by Wollongong Local Court, domestic media reported, after he drove his 27.6-ton truck (U.S. short tons) through concrete barriers, power poles, parked cars, and several fences.

The truck briefly became airborne after it hit the concrete barrier before crashing into cars on the other side of the road. Ho struggled free from the wreckage before the truck burst into flames.

Ho reportedly admitted to the court that he was high on methylamphetamine (“ice”) on the day of the crash. A blood sample had already shown that he was impaired by the consumption of the illegal drug.

A local witness claimed that, if the concrete barrier had not been there, the truck would have crashed into some nearby houses.

Huge beer cargo spilled

Boxes and boxes of beer have been spilled all over the Pacific Highway near Glenthorne, about 152 miles to the north west of Sydney.

Details of the spill have not been made public other than that the driver appears to have somehow lost control and then collided with a nearby embankment.

Happily, no one was hurt in the incident. Tragically, gallons upon gallons of beer have been lost to the dry and dusty road.

Read the whole stories and more  HERE

Source and credits: freightwaves.com / Jim Wilson, Australia Correspondent   /  iTrucker  / Mario Pawlowski