The Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) imposes an obligation on parties in the chain of responsibility to ensure the safety of their transport activities so far as is reasonably practicable. As we have seen in recent court cases, once a business / party meets the criteria of being a party in the chain of responsibility, regardless of which party, they have the same obligation to do what is reasonably practicable to ensure safety.

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National Heavy Vehicle Regulator Regulatory Advice

The NHVR recently issued advice on the use of safety technology and telematics in heavy vehicles. Interestingly the advice contained a case study (below) from the Western Australian Safety Regulator WorkSafe which detailed what the court found to be reasonably practical.

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NHVR case study

A recent Western Australia case has provided insight into the courts’ view on how safety technology and telematics data should be used and reinforces that simply installing the technology is not sufficient.

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In this case, a truck had been fitted with fatigue and distraction technology as part of a fatigue risk management system. The truck veered off the road, was overturned and subsequently caught fire. The driver was not seriously injured; however, a second driver who was sleeping in the cabin was killed.

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After the fatal incident, the fatigue and distraction technology records were examined, and it was discovered that there had been 465 camera misalignments detected over a six-week period, including on the date of the accident. This misalignment alert detected that the drivers had been intentionally moving the cameras, redirecting them away from their faces, and thereby disarming the fatigue and distraction technology capabilities. The operator took no action when these misalignments occurred – in fact, the misalignments went unnoticed, as the data was not being monitored.

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The company pleaded guilty to an offence and was fined $40,000 and ordered to pay costs of $18,996.30.

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This case reinforces that, where an operator has installed safety technology as part of its safety systems and risk management strategy, there is a need for ongoing monitoring of the telematics data. Furthermore, action should be taken based upon data to improve the safety of the transport activities.

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Prosecution details 

A closer look at the prosecution details published by WorkSafe shows that basis of the liability of of the company derives from its failure to: 

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• adequately monitor the Daily Activity Reports in relation to the vehicle in regard to misalignment of the camera exceptions, which may have resulted in the identification of the trend of ongoing exceptions occurring in the vehicle
• to configure the Guardian system such that when a misalignment exception was registered for a vehicle the driver of the vehicle received an instant alert and/or the company received a live notification

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Identification of the trend of ongoing misalignment exceptions occurring within the vehicle may have been possible if the company had:

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• ensured that all Daily Activity Reports were reviewed by the same employee each day, so that any ongoing trend may have been identified 
• ensured that each Daily Activity Report received was cross checked against previous Daily Activity Reports (for example, against the last 7 days) in respect of each vehicle, so that any ongoing trend may have been identified
• logged all data contained in the Daily Activity Reports into a database, so that any ongoing trend may have been identified through data analysis.

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Compliance by design

Unavin is designed to meet the requirements outlined by the NHVR and WorkSafe because we understand the law, telematics / safety devices  and compliance management process. We are here to support drivers to be safe and for businesses to reduce risk and meet their legal obligations.

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