For those who haven’t had time to shop around for the perfect Mother’s Day gift this year, here’s an idea. How about writing Mom a check for $117,000?

According to the research company Salary.com, that’s how much a stay-at-home mom would be paid each year if she was actually compensated for everything she does. Those responsibilities include taxi service for the kids, housekeeper, cook, psychologist and nurse for family members.

The researchers figure a working mom is worth an extra $68,000 beyond what she brings home from her outside job.

So for those of you who are buying your mothers some flowers for $20, just think how much you’re saving.

GEELONG police will closely watch how truck drivers and hoons use the city's new ring road when it partially opens in coming weeks.

The city's top traffic cop, Senior Sergeant Shane Coles, is concerned the staged opening of the road will cause bottlenecks and traffic hazards as drivers seek to use temporary shortcuts not suited to heavy traffic and large vehicles.

He also vowed traffic management officers would be on the lookout for foolhardy drivers who try to christen the road in hoon-like fashion.

"One of our biggest problems is it's a new road and we're going to get some massive speeds down there," he said.

"We'll see who'll be the first to lose their licence; blokes will be out there making contests of it."

The first section of the ring road could be open by the end of next month, but Sen Sgt Coles is yet to speak to VicRoads about the policing issues it might present.

"I'd prefer they didn't open the thing until it is finished," he said.

Police have identified three hot spots, where they envisage potential problems during the next 15 months while the ring road is being completed. They are:

TELEGRAPH Bridge, at the intersection of the Melbourne and Ballarat roads at North Geelong, where it is expected some Melbourne-Geelong motorists might opt to use the Midland Highway-ring road diversion to avoid traffic lights in Norlane and Corio;

THE narrow Hamilton Highway-Deviation Rd route through Fyansford into Aberdeen St, Newtown, which could attract increased truck traffic; and,

THE creation of a temporary "back road" for trucks and cars from Melbourne to Colac, via the ring road, Hamilton Highway, Merrawarp, Barrabool and Devon roads to the Princes Highway at Mount Moriac.

While VicRoads says none of those spots require new construction, signage or truck load limits, ring road manager, Tony Hedley, said they would be monitored.

Sen-Sgt Coles said he had "no idea" what would happen when the first two sections, which link Corio to the Hamilton Highway, opened.

VicRoads plans to open the sections within weeks of each other in either June or July.

Sen-Sgt Coles said the Ballarat Rd was already "pretty tight now even with normal traffic".

"We'll have to wait and see what happens," he said.

"I'm not sure how they're going to change the light sequences, things like that.

"I can't say whether it's going to work or not."

He is also concerned truck traffic might increase on Deviation Rd at Fyansford, and has urged truck drivers to avoid using the back roads of Barrabool on their journeys to and from Melbourne.

"I wouldn't be sending B-doubles down there," he said.

"Going out Devon Rd, a lot of people wouldn't have a clue where they are."

A TRUCK driver was lucky to escape with his life after the rig he was sleeping in caught fire early today.

Fire crews were called to the yard of Kangaroo Island Freight Services, on Eastern Parade at Port Adelaide, about 1.30am.

The cabin of a truck had caught fire and MFS spokesman Brenton Keen said the driver was asleep inside at the time.

"He was fortunate to escape," he said.

"He was woken by the noise from the fire".

The prime mover, carrying an empty 30,000 litre diesel tank, was parked between a stack of timber and another truck, with only about one metre clearance on either side.

Firefighters were able to quickly contain and extinguish the blaze before it spread to the tanker or to the timber and truck nearby.

Damage is estimated at $250,000.

The cause is not considered suspicious and is likely to have been caused by an electrical fault within the truck.

• National Professional Driver of the Year: Kevin Cartwright, Robert Machin, Con Theodosis
  
• National Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Australian Trucking Industry: Peter Thompson, Barry Hatfield, John Kelly (dec)
  
• National Trucking Industry Woman of the Year: Helen Savage, Carol Single, Christina MacGregor
  
• Award for Training Excellence: TNT Express Australia, WA Freight Group.

Some truckers who haul containers in and out of the Port of Oakland shut down this week to protest the fact that their pay has not gone up enough to counter punishing fuel costs. Diesel has been about $4.57 per gallon in California’s Bay area this week.

Protest organizer Ajit Singh Gill has been traveling back and forth from the Port of Oakland and the Lathrop and Stockton rail yards to meet with truckers who have shut down because they can’t afford to fill up their trucks. Some are left with only $54 a day – after paying for fuel – to cover operating expenses and their wages.

“We really don’t consider this a shutdown. It’s just that these drivers can’t afford to drive anymore,” Gill said. “People should understand that they are not making enough money to pay for their trucks, their insurance and everything else they need.”

Gill told Land Line on Thursday, May 8, that some drivers are hauling loads from Stockton to Gilroy for a flat rate of $210 per round-trip, plus a $24 fuel surcharge. With fuel costs running them around $180 per trip, Gill said they are left with just $54 per round trip. Because of traffic and wait times at weigh scales and at docks, he said these truckers are only able to make one round-trip a day.

Some drivers on the West Coast are paying as much as $1,500 each week for fuel, according to one source Land Line spoke to on Thursday, May 8.

“These guys have no other choice but to park their trucks right now,” said the source, who spoke to Land Line on the condition of anonymity. “As the cost of fuel continues to escalate, these guys with older trucks that are only getting about 4 mpg aren’t getting the fuel surcharge they need to keep them going.”

Gill said companies at the Port of Oakland have not held up their end of an agreement they made with port truckers four years ago. That agreement calls for them to pay the truckers 5 percent of their fuel costs above $2 per gallon, he said. He said that while motor carriers’ customers are paying fuel surcharges, that money isn’t being passed along to the drivers buying the fuel.

“This is not a strike that’s getting out of hand. We gave two weeks’ written notice to the companies and brokers that truckers are working for,” Gill said. “Some of the companies responded, but some didn’t respond to the notice at all.”

Port of Oakland Spokesperson Marilyn Sandifur confirmed that as many as 150 truckers were at the port protesting high fuel prices Monday through Wednesday, but said there were only “sporadic demonstrations by truckers” at the port when she spoke to Land Line on Thursday, May 8.

Gill said that decrease in protesters at the port is because truckers began meeting elsewhere after being ticketed for parking their cars at the port.

“The Oakland Police Department is on the scene because the port area is really not a good place for pedestrian access, as you can imagine,” Sandifur said. “The port is not a safe place for people to protest so the police are out there to ensure the safety of the protestors as well as ensure the safety of everyone that’s moving through the port. And then they’re there to make sure that commerce keeps flowing.”

She said she couldn’t estimate what kind of economic disruption the protests have caused at the Port of Oakland this week.

“There’s really no way for us to estimate at this point,” Sandifur said. “We know there’s been some impact, but we really don’t have an idea if it’s a minimal impact or a larger impact.”

Tensions on the rise
One protester described the scene at the Port of Oakland as being under “martial law.” Sandifur said that wasn’t the case at all.

“There isn’t an area set up for protests; this area is set up for train, truck and cargo movement,” she said. “But their right of free speech has been protected, and the Oakland Police are there to see to it. As long as they obey the rules, no one is going to ask them to leave.”

Sandifur said she did see one of the flyers that read, “Subject: Rate adjustment due to high diesel prices,” which was being handed out by truckers at the port.

“Things are definitely difficult for people whose livelihoods depend on the cost of fuel,” she said. “I think what we are looking at is a nationwide issue not a local issue. The elected officials really need to be examining this.”

Oakland Police Department spokesman Roland Holmgren said there have been a few incidents involving protestors at the Port of Oakland, but that overall things have been relatively quiet there.

“There was one arrest for someone who threw a rock and broke a windshield of a truck, and there have been two reports of vandalism,” he said.

Holmgren said he has heard varying statistics on the number of protestors, with as many as 200 protestors reported at one time at the Port of Oakland earlier in the week.

Gill said some companies have come out to negotiate with truckers. He said he was hopeful the protest would be over in the next day or two.

“We are only asking for companies to give us what they agreed to pay us four years ago,” he said. “If you calculate how much it costs to own and operate a truck, there’s no way we can make it on what they are paying us.”

THOUSANDS of motorists are stuck twice daily in huge traffic jams as the closure of Woy Woy Rd causes gridlock each morning and evening peak period.

Motorists are reporting delays of more than one hour each way and even up to three hours as traffic banks up.

They are being forced on to other already clogged alternative arterial roads.

In the morning, traffic on Brisbane Water Drive banks back to Tascott as commuters try to get through the Central Coast Highway intersection and up Kariong Hill.

School students and workers trying to get down the hill are also banked back because the intersection cannot cope with demand.

Debenham Rd, the back road down the mountain, is also becoming clogged as people with local knowledge try to use it as an alternative.

The problem flows back into Manns Rd, West Gosford, where heavy vehicles and factory workers get caught in the jam at the intersection.

Similarly, motorists who try to use the Ourimbah interchange add to the usual jam trying to get through the Pacific Highway and Chittaway Rd intersection and roadworks.

Cars coming from Gosford queue back to Lisarow and cars coming along Enterprise Drive also queue for kilometres.

In the afternoon, the situation is worse with cars heading in the opposite direction queued back to the F3 entrances at Ourimbah and Kariong.

Those leaving the F3 at Kariong now face a traffic jam stretching more than 5km every night.

A 47-YEAR-old worker was run over and killed by a workmate as he carried out road works in Sydney's north-west yesterday.

The worker was hit by a tip truck as he worked on a median strip on Epping Rd, near the Macquarie Business Park, about 1.10pm.

He died at the scene.

The man was part of a a group working on the median strip when he was hit by the truck being driven by a driver contracted to the RTA.

No other worker was hurt in the crash on the site of bus lane roadworks.

Police and inspectors from Work Cover NSW were at the scene yesterday afternoon.

The man's body remained where he had been hit and killed until late afternoon - shielded from passing traffic by a black tarpaulin.

The crash brought traffic in the city's north-west to a crawl with two of the three east-bound lanes of Epping Rd closed for more than five hours.

The man's work mates were too distraught to comment on the crash last night.

It is understood the tip truck driver has been questioned by police and is undergoing counselling.

The work was being carried out on behalf of the RTA who said last night all workers and contractors on the site had been offered counselling if they wanted it.

The RTA said they had been in touch with the man's family and passed on their condolences to his friends and relatives.