Chain of Responsibility: Are you doing enough?

Chain of Responsibility legislation has now been in place for over 10 years. The centrepiece of the package is the model Road Transport Reform (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill (the "C&E Bill"), which was approved unanimously by Australian transport ministers in November 2003.

In most jurisdictions the Bill has been adopted and implemented. These include Victoria and New South Wales (September 2005), South Australia (early 2007), Queensland (April 2008), Tasmania 2011 and Western Australia April 2015

The Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) under the auspices of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator commenced in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria on 10 February 2014. In addition to passing the HVNL, states and territories agreed to four regulations made under the national law. Some aspects of the national chain of responsibility regime as set out in the NHVL have not been adopted in WA.

It is positive to note that with such commitment to transport safety across Australia the number of fatalities in Heavy Vehicles has been in decline. The following chart and statistics from Bureau of Infrastructure Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE)

During the 12 months to the end of March 2015, 220 people died from 188 fatal crashes involving heavy trucks or buses. These included:

• 113 deaths from 95 crashes involving articulated trucks, 87 deaths from 77 crashes involving heavy rigid trucks and 22 deaths from 18 crashes involving buses.

• Fatal crashes involving articulated trucks: decreased by 5.9 per cent compared with the corresponding period one year earlier and decreased by an average of 8.5 per cent per year over the three years to March 2015.

• Fatal crashes involving heavy rigid trucks: increased by 10.0 per cent compared with the corresponding period one year earlier and increased by an average of 6.0 per cent per year over the three years to March 2015.

While it is positive to note that the number fatalities is in decline, fatalities involving heavy rigid vehicles is increasing. This increase is more a relationship of the increased demand for transport services as the freight volume in Australia continues to grow.

BITRE forecasts the growth in road volumes from 2010 of 197.3 billion tonne kilometre will increase 1.8 times by 2030 and rail will increase from 261.4 billion tonne kilometre to 1.9 times by 2030. In 15 years we will nearly double Australia’s current freight task by road and rail.

We need to be concerned that despite the net reduction in fatalities the involvement of heavy vehicles in fatalities is increasing and with such a significant growth in freight task being forecast this does not present a positive outlook.

With all the effort being delivered by many companies and organisations we still do not have a positive outlook in reducing the number of heavy vehicles involved in fatalities.

My concern is that while the transport industry is being held responsible in the majority of accidents there is still not enough effort being placed in prosecuting those in the supply chain for allowing carriers to breach safety legislation.

Legal opinion suggests that while regulators can charge anyone in the CoR, in practice they tend to prosecute the vehicle’s driver. The driver is then forced to appeal the charge by nominating the responsible party. This puts drivers in an unenviable position, particularly those precariously employed as casuals or sub-contractors, because they risk jeopardising future work.

While NSW has been leading the charge to prosecute more than the driver, the majority of prosecutions still do not follow the supply chain to include those who are part of the chain of responsibility and until the prosecutions do begin to focus on corporate and individuals in the supply chain the risk of increasing heavy vehicle incidents will occur. We cannot allow this to continue.

I do not intend to allow this discussion to focus solely on statistics, my great concern with statistics is we loose sight of the critical importance of Chain of Responsibility and the National Heavy Vehicle Legislation.

The fundamental principles are to ensure vehicles in the supply chain greater than 4.5 tonne tare maintain effective

• Load Restraint

• Fatigue Management

• Mass and Dimension

• Speed

• Maintenance (coming soon)

Each party in the Supply Chain has equal shared responsibility, it is just not the carrier’s responsibility.

Each of these fundamental principles have had significant and horrible accidents recorded against them:

Load Restraint

• Brenda Adams in June 2003 killed by a 5 tonne coil coming of a semi-trailer and hitting her car head on.

• Mr Manoj Masih June 2012 killed by a 20 tonne container rolling on top of his vehicle

Fatigue Management and Speed

• Lennon’s accident killing Mr and Mrs Donald Logan and their son Calvyn

• Tanker incident Ulladulla Mr and Mrs David Bridge and their two daughters Jordan and Makeely

Maintenance

• Cootes incident Mona Vale Mr Peter Wem and his passenger Mr Graham Holtretter

• Truck brake failure in Adelaide Mr Robert Brimson.

These are only some of the number of sad losses of life that have occurred there are many more.

I am still dismayed at the lack of interest many companies have towards making changes to their business to recognise or improve Chain of Responsibility. Most feel it “won’t happen to them”, or “it is the carriers responsibility” it is not just a transport company problem, it is a community problem, and we as a business community involved in logistics must start to take responsibility.

We cannot rely on the will of Government to make the legislative changes, regrettably mostly all legislative changes are the result of significant loss, as business leaders the responsibility must be assumed in house to get on with it.

A simple process you could undertake in your business to allow you to consider your obligations towards Chain of Responsibility

1: Hazard identification – Identify the activities or areas of your business giving rise to potential CoR breaches.

2: Risk assessment – Assess the likelihood of a breach occurring and the likely severity of its impact on road infrastructure and public safety.

3: Control implementation – Develop and implement control measures to eliminate or reduce the likelihood or consequences of a breach.

4: Review/response – Periodically review the process (at least annually for fatigue and speed) and/or execute additional control measures in response to any actual breach.

Modal Logistics is prepared and willing to take you through this process to help you identify how best to manage Chain of Responsibility and for your business to make a positive step towards reducing the likelihood of any incident resulting in loss along your supply chain.