Heavy vehicle drivers have a significant role to play in ensuring that the road network is safe for all road users. Often the responsibility that driver's bear is overlooked even by the drivers themselves.

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For transport operators the decisions made by the drivers are the last line of defence between a safe and compliant operation and a dangerous and non compliant one.

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Drivers need to understand that nothing is more important than their safety, and that they have the right and the responsibility to make the safe decision every time.

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Safety culture is about being proactive and is very different from the compliance culture many businesses opt for.

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How to work together - driver speed management

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Driver licences

Heavy vehicle drivers have a licence issued by the relevant state licensing authority and are subject to the responsibilities of a driver. For example, obeying the road rules when driving, reporting medical conditions and changes in details associated with their licence or completing a work diary.

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If the driver does not meet their obligations then they may be fined, be given demerit points, lose their licence and in extreme circumstances imprisoned.

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Transport Operators 

Transport operators will often have some sort of speed management policy / procedures including monitoring using GPS or other telematics devices and a consequence management framework often these documents will say something like:

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Drivers are:

• responsible for ensuring that they do not speed while driving a heavy vehicle
• required to report the receipt of any Infringement Notice
• required to cooperate with any requests to enable to access driver licence records, demerit point records and Infringement Notice records

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The Company may take disciplinary action against any Worker who breaches this policy.

The disciplinary action taken will be determined in the sole discretion of the company and may include:

• Further training in this policy
• Suspension, including suspension without payment
• Termination of the employment or engagement of the Worker with notice or immediately

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Mixed messages

In this example the company is telling the driver not to speed in the vehicle or they will face disciplinary action and at the same time to self-report where they have been caught speeding. Not sure if these types of processes are helping to build a culture of safety in the workplace.

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We often see businesses with these types of policies that are reluctant to enforce them because of the damage that it does to the relationships with the driver group. So what’s the use of these policies in the first place?

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Compliance management is important but reactive

Compliance management is necessary. The Road Rules and Heavy Vehicle National Law set the minimum standards that must be followed. On top of it, vehicle data devices and telematics are also generating more and more rules for drivers to break. 

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For the compliance management process to kick in something must have gone wrong. This makes reporting, consultation and communication regarding the root cause of the issue more difficult when the events are looked at from this perspective.

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Proactive Safety Culture 

We believe that building the safety culture begins with everyone understanding what their responsibilities are:

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• Drivers are responsible to operate legally, drive safely and to the road rules / law - this is their obligation as a licence holder

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• Transport Operators must ensure the safety of their transport activities and business practices as they relate to the vehicle and not cause or encourage drivers to speed or breach the HVNL.

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So the role of the transport operator is to not inhibit the driver’s ability to be safe / compliant and ensure that corporate culture supports drivers in meeting their obligations.

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This would imply that the idea of putting the GPS speed monitoring device in the vehicle is to assist the drivers to meet their obligations rather than detect and report on CoR breaches (as many businesses still call them). 

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Building better relationships

We wonder if instead of sending file notes / warning letters to the drivers because of the GPS speed events the business would be better off encouraging the drivers to be safe. This might include setting proactive goals and targets for the drivers (for example zero events per month) and helping them work towards those goals.

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Transport operators could also be asking if there was anything the business was doing / not doing  that caused the driver to make a poor decision on the road.

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Sharing the load and working together to improve safety and compliance will make for a better business and safer place to work.

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