The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) has prosecuted a logging company and its Director based in Tasmania, following pleas of guilty to serious offences under the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL).

An extensive investigation by the NHVR revealed ongoing fatigue breaches by the company. Over a 12-month period, the company had 251 fatigue-related breaches which were undetected by the company and Director. 

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Due to the management of these practices, charges were laid under sections 26G and 26H of the HVNL:

•  section 26G means that the person’s contravention of the primary duty exposes an individual, or class of individuals, to a risk of death or serious injury or illness, while,
  
  
• section 26H means the person has a duty under section 26C (Primary Duty) and the person contravenes the duty.

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Fatigue Management - Getting the basics right

We often discuss the various facets of heavy vehicle driver fatigue management with our customers and explain that they need to manage multiple aspects of their business practices to demonstrate compliance with the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL). We often stress that drivers need to be empowered to comply with the HVNL driver obligations related to fatigue management and record keeping.

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Drivers have to manage their:

• Personal levels of fatigue
• Work / rest option compliance
• Record generation requirements (Work Diary and/or Local Area Record)

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Transport Operators need to:

• Ensure the driver generates the appropriate records
• Keep the prescribed records for the prescribed period
• Manage the primary duty to ensure safety
• Control their executive officer due diligence
• Not engage in prohibited requests and/or contracts

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Whilst it is the responsibility of the driver not to be fatigued, the transport operator needs to improve the safety of their activities to ensure that they are not causing or encouraging the drivers to break the law and proactively work towards safety.

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One breach per day

Averaging out 251 fatigue breaches over 12 months you could see that a driver who makes the same mistake each day for a year could generate this many breaches.

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Transport operators not only need to meet the prescriptive record keeping requirements of the law, they also need to review the records for compliance with the driver’s work / rest option, proactively educate their drivers (and others) regarding fatigue management and discourage breaches of the HVNL. 

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The prescription

The fatigue record keeping requirements of the HVNL can be found in the aptly named Part 6.4 Requirements about record keeping.
An operator should be able to produce the following fatigue records:

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• All rosters and trip schedules for the drivers 
• All records for work undertaken by drivers such as, daily and weekly run sheets that show work and rest times or telematics “fatigue” records
• National Driver Vehicle Driver Work Diary duplicate (yellow) pages or approved Electronic Work Diary (EWD) records.

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These records should be checked on a regular basis for completeness, accuracy and compliance with the HVNL. If your business is not checking these records regularly how will they know if a driver is breaching the law. 

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The Safety Management System

Generating compliant records is not the end of the obligations for a transport operator, reducing the risk of fatigue related incidents is also required. This is generally undertaken through a Safety Management System approach

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The fatigue component of the Safety Management System should include a risk register of all risk assessments relating to heavy vehicle driver fatigue and the risk assessments should include the:

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• identification of fatigue risks 
• likelihood and degree of harm the risks may cause 
• measures in place to eliminate, control and monitor the risks
• Residual risk when the controls have been put in place

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The Controls

The documented fatigue controls in a transport operation often include policies and procedures relating to heavy vehicle driver fatigue management and primary duty compliance.

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The controls should include induction, training, and assessment. Records should be stored and regularly checked for completeness and currency. Similarly if breaches of the controls or the HVNL occur non-conformance events should be generated and corrective actions documented.

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Safety promotion as a control

Toolbox talks, safety alerts, newsletters, posters and similar safety promoting materials related to fatigue and work / rest compliance help to build a culture of safety in an organisation.  Importantly the business should document records of attendance to meetings with a signoff sheet or the names of the recipients and the dates materials were sent.

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