29 June 2005
HEAVY VEHICLE REGULATION IN WA NEEDS IMPROVEMENT FINDS AUDITOR GENERAL
A report from Auditor General Des Pearson, tabled in Parliament today, has outlined a range of concerns regarding the regulation of heavy vehicles in WA.
Four agencies share principal responsibility for regulation – Main Roads Western Australia (Main Roads), the Department of Planning and Infrastructure, the Department for Consumer and Employment Protection through Worksafe, and the Western Australia Police Service, with Main Roads having the largest operational responsibility.
Whilst finding the regulatory process adequate, with Government since 2001 taking a range of steps to address community concern about heavy vehicles, Mr Pearson notes that progress has been slow in some areas and that opportunities for improvements to practices still exist in other areas.
Areas scrutinised by Mr Pearson in his examination included:
- heavy vehicle licensing and accreditation of operators
- road access permits and notices
- enforcement of fatigue management and heavy vehicle regulations
- monitoring of crash statistics
- information sharing and information systems
Findings across these areas included:
- Heavy vehicles make up about 3% of vehicles on WA roads and are involved in about 3% of crashes; however, they are involved in about 10% of all fatal crashes.
- Main Roads’ compliance officers intercepted 5,300 heavy vehicles between July 2004 and February 2005, with an estimated 15% attracting a financial penalty or work order – this figure indicating the evident safety risk associated with over-mass breaches, vehicle defects, load restraint issues and permit breaches. A further 60% of these vehicles were issued with a caution.
- In enforcing fatigue management regulations Worksafe inspectors issued 30 prohibition notices and 155 improvement notices between January 2004 to February 2005 – prohibition notices are generally issued where there is a ‘risk of imminent and serious’ injury or harm and require drivers to cease activity for seven hours, whilst improvement notices require operators to improve their trip and rest records.
- Worksafe’s capacity to enforce fully fatigue management regulations is reduced by a lack of authority to pull vehicles over for inspection, the agency favouring the use of joint roadblocks with the Police Service and Main Roads.
- Main Roads lacks the legal authority to enforce annual audits of vehicle maintenance and fatigue management systems, impose graded sanctions on operators who don’t comply with the accreditation requirements, or require vehicles to stop for the purpose of inspections to assess compliance with accreditation.
- Heavy vehicle crash data in WA is inaccurate and incomplete – recorded crash information lacks specific heavy vehicle information, and in addition, privacy concerns limit Main Roads’ capacity to extract key information from crash data. Further, Main Roads’ Vehicle Load System database does not easily provide information to monitor and support the regulation of heavy vehicles.
- Some operations of Main Roads’ Transport Compliance Section (RTC) need monitoring and review, notwithstanding the level of experience and skills of individual inspectors, as audit observed seemingly low inspection rates and inconsistent assessment of vehicles.
Another concern for Mr Pearson was the lack of an encompassing heavy vehicle safety policy at Main Roads.
The report finds the relative importance of heavy vehicle safety it is not reflected in an explicit heavy vehicle policy or in other important documents – Main Roads however recognises that safety is a key factor in its regulatory role, this being evidenced in some of its operational guidelines.
Main Roads has accepted ‘… that a formal Heavy Vehicle Safety Policy would be beneficial’, though they consider they are giving due regard to safety.
Ends/.
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