Heavy vehicle enforcement operations in NSW

Heavy vehicles account for small percentage of the vehicle fleet in New South Wales (NSW), but are over-represented in crash statistics, particularly serious crashes. This presentation will describe two fatal crashes involving heavy vehicles in NSW that led to major joint enforcement operations by NSW Police Force and Roads and Maritime Services. On 24 January 2012, three members of a family were killed when they were involved in a crash with a B-double truck at Menangle, NSW. The second crash involved a heavy vehicle carrying a sea container, which flipped and killed the driver of another vehicle. After the Menangle crash, NSW Police Force and Roads and Maritime Services worked together in a joint investigation into the company involved, resulting in a search warrant being executed on their business premises. Further speeding events in this company’s vehicles were also the subject of close scrutiny. A speed audit into the company’s driving compliance identified 229 trucks in the one fleet that required further examination to determine whether or not speed tampering was a compliance issue. An examination of the sea container crash resulted in two operations where trucks carrying containers were inspected, containers opened, and all breaches prosecuted. The presentation concludes by summarising the key enforcement outcomes of the operations, including numbers of heavy vehicles inspected, non compliance issues detected, defects detected, and infringements and breaches issued. Major outcomes of these operations in terms of ‘Chain of Responsibility’ prosecutions initiated by Roads and Maritime Services and ‘Court Attendance Notices’ issued to company directors will be discussed, as well as descriptive comparisons of heavy vehicle crash and fatality data.