Media Release
June 28 2007
Fighting trucker fatigue – it’s good business
Working
safer but not less productively - that’s what the tough new national
Heavy Vehicle Driver Fatigue Regulations are all about, according to
UniSA’s
Professor Drew Dawson, Director of its
Centre for Sleep Research.
“Some of the media coverage over the regulations and what they will mean
really has many businesses worried, but the bottom line is that change
was necessary” Prof Dawson says.
“This isn’t a question of safety versus what’s best for business - being
safe is good business. It always promotes the long term profitability of
the business.
“Increasingly, road transport operators who run an unsafe operation will
find it difficult to sustain their business model.”
Drawn up by the National Transport
Commission (NTC), the regulations introduce new limits and
flexibilities on driving times and rest breaks and a chain of
responsibility for managing fatigue.
“This is a significant improvement on where we’ve been in the past. It
positions Australia as one of the leading regulatory environments for
fatigue in road transport,” Prof Dawson says.
“Australia has led the world in reforming fatigue management in the rail
and aviation sectors. It was inevitable that this would be eventually
applied to road transport. Australia has a lot to be proud of but we
still have a long way to go.”
Prof Dawson says it is estimated that 20 to 30 per cent of long distance
road transport accidents have fatigue as a contributory factor. And
while the federal and state governments have agreed to the new
standardised safety laws, he says it is now up to businesses and
organisations to develop plans for compliance.
“Inevitably, these processes move slowly,” he says.
“It’s a good positive step, but we think that more could be done to
acknowledge the diversity of road transport operations in Australia.
Also, one of the critical determinations of the success of the new
approach will be the degree to which compliance is enforced.”
As a leading expert in his field, Prof Dawson has helped develop
hundreds of fatigue management plans for sectors as diverse as aviation,
rail, trucking, mining and oil and gas. He says it’s imperative that all
businesses with potential fatigue issues have fatigue risk management
plans in effect.
“Fatigue is a killer, plain and simple,” he says. “We know this and
we’ve known this for a while, so there’s no excuse for not managing a
clearly identified hazard.
“To do otherwise will increasingly be seen as negligence.”
Contact for interview
-
Professor Drew Dawson mobile 0438 329 766 email drew.dawson@unisa.edu.au
Media contact
-
Tess van Straaten mobile 0412 102 662 email tess.vanstraaten@unisa.edu.au