Regulation of Heavy Vehicles

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Regulation of Heavy Vehicles

Report No 4 - June 2005

Overview

Heavy vehicles (any vehicle over 4.5 tonnes) play a crucial role in the economy of Western Australia (WA). Heavy vehicles in WA carried 18.8 billion tonne kilometres of freight in 2003 of which 80 per cent was carried by the extra large ‘Restricted Access Vehicles’ (RAV) category.

Safety is central to the public interest in heavy vehicles. Since 2001, the Government has taken a range of steps to address community concern about heavy vehicles. These include the compulsory accreditation of RAV operators to improve vehicle and driver safety and amendment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 to address commercial driver fatigue management.

Main Roads Western Australia (Main Roads) plays the biggest role in the government regulation of heavy vehicles, though several other agencies also have signifi cant roles. These include the Department of Planning and Infrastructure (DPI), the Department for Consumer and Employment Protection (DOCEP) through Worksafe and the Western Australia Police Service (WAPS).

The examination found that regulation of heavy vehicles is adequate. Improvements to regulatory practices are occurring though some of these have been slow in eventuating and opportunity for improvement in other areas still exists.

Key Findings

Heavy vehicles are no more likely to be involved in crashes than other vehicles. Heavy vehicles make up about three per cent of vehicles and are involved in about three per cent of crashes. However, they were involved in 10 per cent of all fatal crashes in 2001 (the latest data available).
Main Roads’ compliance officers stopped over 5 300 heavy vehicles between July 2004 and February 2005. Approximately 15 per cent of operators received financial penalties or work orders.
Worksafe is developing a comprehensive approach to enforcing fatigue management regulations. However, its capacity to fully enforce the regulations is reduced by its lack of authority to stop vehicle operators for inspection.
The quality and use of information for regulating heavy vehicles has been poor:
- recorded crash information has not been used by Main Roads for its planning or monitoring because it has lacked specific heavy vehicle information. Some improvements have recently been made by the WAPS, the Insurance Commission and Main Roads to improve this situation
- Main Roads’Vehicle Load System database does not easily provide information to monitor and support the regulation of heavy vehicles. Improvements are expected by the end of 2006
- privacy concerns limit Main Road’s capacity to extract key information from crash data.
Main Road’s lacks legal authority to enforce important aspects of its Accreditation process. Solutions are being investigated, including amendments to regulations. This is expected to be completed by the end of 2005.
Main Roads’ Road Transport Compliance section does not review the activities of its inspectors. Monitoring is needed to address apparent:
- low rates of vehicle inspections
- inconsistent assessment of vehicles.

What Should Be Done?

Main Roads should:

obtain accurate and meaningful reports from the crash data. These should be used routinely in business planning and policy formation.
standardise its inspection criteria, revise its inspection program and monitor their application.

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