Road Safety cannot Rest on Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal Shoulders Alone

The ALC recently issued a warning that the industry shouldn’t be distracted by campaigns to retain the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT) because this isn’t the way to improve heavy vehicle safety.

Working towards a safer heavy vehicle industry must involve greater compliance and awareness of road transport laws, the ALC cautioned.

In a recent media release, Managing Director of the ALC, Mr Kilgariff stated that The RSRT is not the “silver bullet on road safety” that its advocates claim it is. In fact he claims, some of its requirements may even conflict with national laws.

Mr Kilgariff believes the RSRT may add a lot of unnecessary expense to the logistics industry without actually providing any safety benefits which is why a Government review of the Tribunal is warranted.

Mr Kilgariff also explained:

“It is appropriate the Government is reviewing the Tribunal to assess whether it is meeting its legislative objectives and not resulting in any regulatory overlap; a key point made in the ALC submission to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into Workplace Relations.”

The ALC Managing Director also said that more effort needs to put into meeting Chain of Responsibility (CoR) obligations from all parties in the supply chain.

The Chain of Responsibility mandates that everyone involved in the supply chain must implement good practices that prevent breaching of the law. It holds everyone involved accountable for their role in fatigue driving, from customers to drivers. CoR aims at making sure everyone in the supply chain shares the responsibility for breaches around road transport laws, rather than simply blaming any one party.

Mr Kilgariff stated what he thought was necessary for better CoR compliance to be achieved,

“Achieving greater levels of CoR compliance, based on increased education and awareness-raising, are the keys to improving supply chain safety,” he said.

The ALC has compiled an information brochure entitled “Strengthening the Supply Chain” which provides up to date and practical information on important issues of supply chain safety and compliance.

The ALC has also been working with the National Transport Commission (NTC) to develop CoR legislative provisions and submissions on the role of general duties and heavy vehicle road worthiness.

Mr Kilgariff went on to state:

“It concerns me when I hear arguments that the most effective way to improve heavy vehicle safety can be achieved through the development and retention of overlapping legislative measures such as the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal,” he said.

“This effectively diminishes the importance of the Chain of Responsibility concept.

“ALC’s concern has always been that Chain of Responsibility legislation covers the very areas that the Road Safety Remuneration Act aims to address,” he said.

Mr Kilgariff was careful to note that safety in the heavy vehicle industry was improving, but even one crash is one too many, he points out.

He said that although heavy vehicles are over represented in crashes, they are only the cause of the incident around 30 per cent of the time.

Despite the progress made thus far, the industry needs to remain focused on achieving better levels of compliance with road transport laws which have taken many years to develop, Kilgariff notes. He concludes by cautioning us against being distracted by emotional campaigns to retain the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.

Read more at http://austlogistics.com.au/

To find out more about CoR click here.