News

A quarter of all trucks inspected have brake fault: TfNSW

brake fault

An emphasis on education and an outcome-focused and risk-based compliance approach is having positive effects on safety in the trucking industry, reports Transport for NSW.

Transport for NSW Deputy Secretary Safety, Environment and Regulation Tara McCarthy said there has been a 14.75%  reduction in fatal crashes involving trucks on NSW’s road in the 12 months to December 2019.

“But we must remain vigilant,” she warned.  “Our focus is on heavy vehicle speed limiter compliance, driver fatigue and roadworthiness, particularly around brakes.

“Brakes remain the most common major defect type, with 24 per cent of all heavy vehicles inspected having some sort of brake fault.”

As part of TfNSW’s program to improve brake compliance, the Heavy Vehicle Rating System (HVRS) was utilised to identify the top 50 companies where fleet inspections found brake faults.

These companies were invited to discuss their compliance in more detail between July and September this year as part of an education campaign.

McCarthy said the companies were provided with advice on how they could manage defects and infringements identified during roadside intercepts and at their annual heavy vehicle registration inspection.

“The response to the education initiative indicated the majority of transport operators want to improve their overall safety and compliance, with many of the companies requesting follow-up meetings to evaluate improvements they implement,” said McCarthy.

“It was also been pleasing to see an 18 per cent improvement in Safe-T-Cam speeding detections across 2019 with the volume of 12 tonne-plus vehicles detected speeding falling from 2483 in January to 1990 in December.

McCarthy said another area in which there has been improvement is the Sydney-based truck and dog industry.

“Our figures show that compliance is 64 per cent for the total truck and dog sector with the Sydney-based truck and dog sector dropping to a 61 per cent compliance rate, compared to 88 per cent compliance for the heavy vehicle industry overall.

“This is an improvement on the previous year of 57 per cent compliance, but shows there’s more work to do in this space.

“With the NSW Government’s massive infrastructure build continuing and the economic stimulus provided in both the Australian and NSW budgets continuing to support and rebuild the economy, encouraging improved safety in the truck and dog sector will be a focus of 2021 for Transport for NSW.”

For more information visit heavy vehicle crash data.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Send this to a friend