So it is reasonable to suspect he knows a thing or two about the conditions on our main highways.

The Dubbo-based truckie is calling on governments to pour more money into preventative maintenance of major roads in a bid to curb a growing road toll and accident rate.

"I've spoken with people from Vic Roads, the Roads and Maritime Service and the TMR (Department of Transport and Main Roads) in Queensland over the past three weeks about various issues and the thing they all tell me is they have no money to fix things," Mr Hannifey said.

"I was coming out of Brisbane one day and there was a pothole developing in the highway, so I called and they basically said they couldn't do anything about it.

"That happens because no work goes into the roads when the dips and bumps start developing. In a truck we feel those things long before a car driver would, and if they were fixed up early and some prevention work done then in the long haul it would save all the governments lots of money.

"There's a federal election coming up in a few weeks and I would love to see someone put it on the agenda."

Mr Hannifey does more than 200,000 kilometres a year in the cabin of a big rig and, while he admits trucks do play a role in the wear and tear of roads, he also acknowledges that if those behind the wheel were listened to more road conditions would be much better.

Not perfect, but significantly better.

"On some of these roads you can have 3000 trucks a night hitting a bump and of course the wear and tear of that will affect the road," he said.

"Hitting those bumps and potholes also causes wear and tear on our trucks and our bodies.

"The truckies feel it too because for every action there will be an equal and opposite reaction.

"There's bad patches along the Hume Highway on the way into Melbourne, and there's also bad patches in and out of Brisbane.

"It's a problem across all states really.

" The national roads used to be a federal issue but they were relinquished to the individual states and now they have differing standards.

"If we had a national standard that they had to adhere to, and we were working on fixing problems when they first started to arise, then the roads would be safer for everyone, whether you drive a truck or car or bus, or even ride a motorbike.

"You will never get it perfect but if we had those standards in place we would have a significantly better and safer road network," Mr Hannifey said.