ESC, PBS, Linfox, Truck Classes and Roller Brake Testing

Among the topics in the news this week from Diesel News are ESC, PBS, Linfox, Truck Classes and Roller Brake Testing. The Australian Government should require new trucks and trailers to be fitted with stability control technology and should do it fast, according to the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) and the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association (ALRTA). Geoff Crouch, ATA Chair, said electronic stability control is a vehicle safety system that monitors the stability and sideways acceleration of a heavy vehicle, and kicks in to brake the vehicle if it detects a rollover starting.
Read More

Making Corporates and Directors Liable

A submission by the Australian Trucking Association has called for corporate officers and directors to be personally liable under the Heavy Vehicle National Law for exercising due diligence. The submission to the National Transport Commission’s executive officer liability review is aimed at making these officers liable in any failure to prevent 34 specific safety critical offences.
Read More
Fatigue and Safety - Talking Turkey About Trucking

Building the Ramparts

Watching the antics on TV dramas like Game of Thrones and Vikings should inspire the trucking industry in its next moves, politically. The bloody battle is won, for now. The opposition has retreated, but will refresh itself and prepare for a new assault, sometime in the future, but we don’t know when.
Read More
Fatigue and Safety - Talking Turkey About Trucking

Where’s the Link?

Events in the NSW Courts this week are providing plenty of material for the general media’s ‘evil truckies driving monster trucks’ brigade. Watching the coverage in newspapers and on TV is like watching a car crash in slow motion, it gives you a sinking feeling and you know nothing good is going to come of it.
Read More
Fatigue and Safety - Talking Turkey About Trucking

A Chain of Consequences

Another outcome from the meeting of Transport Ministers, at the beginning of the month, is changes to the way the chain of responsibility is made to work. These changes look to bring the COR rules more in line with those governing workplace health and safety, to which they are closely related, and overlap at some points.
Read More

COR Fines for Consignor and Loader

Two off road parties have been prosecuted and fined under chain of responsibility rules in a recent case in New South Wales. Transport law specialist lawyers, Cooper Grace Ward, have published some information about the case and conclude the case highlights the significant penalties that can be imposed by the courts on off road parties in the ‘chain of responsibility’.
Read More
Fatigue and Safety - Talking Turkey About Trucking

Both Sides of the Coin

Sitting at the ALC Safety Summit this week demonstrated to me a disconnect going on in the road transport industry. As with many problems in the trucking industry today, the core of the issue is communication, the message isn’t getting all the way down the chain.
Read More

Improve the Chain

The chain of responsibility (COR) legislation needs to be streamlined with safety prioritised is a common view in the trucking industry. The current legislation sets out COR duties by attempting to prescribe exactly how businesses must operate, discouraging innovation and creating unnecessary red tape.
Read More
Fatigue and Safety - Talking Turkey About Trucking

Who’s Responsible?

Apparently, there are some chain of responsibility laws in place in Australia. We are told the rules make the responsibility fall on whichever party involved in the supply chain forced the hand of the truck driver to break the rules. These rules have been in place for over ten years now and, for most people, nothing has changed.
Read More