Victoria Police presses need for trucking to work with it to eradicate dangerous practices
Ruza Zivkusic-Aftasi | May 29, 2012
Victoria Police has pressed the need for trucking to work with it to eradicate dangerous practices, as new enforcement figures reveal the use of drugs and defective vehicles in the industry.
The heavy vehicle unit of Victoria Police has fined 28 truck drivers for drug-related offences during the annual Operation Austrans which targets driving, speed and fatigue for the month of May.
Road Policing Operations Superintendent Neville Taylor says the most recent figures show one in 11 drivers tested positive drugs during oral fluid tests.
The number is down from one in three during the first two weeks of the blitz. Some 5,200 trucks were intercepted by the police during the operation.
In a separate enforcement during Operation Hazard earlier this year, conducted by VicRoads, 85 percent of the trucks in metropolitan Melbourne were caught with defects.
VicRoads Vehicle Management and Safety Director Don Hogben says 77 percent of them had major defects.
Forty-one percent of the defected vehicles had braking issues, with 37 percent found to have steering flaws. Three transport companies were heavily fined for exceeding work hours, failing to comply with rest breaks and making false diary entries.
The three were fined a total of $109,000 between them.
Thirty-one companies received a knock on the door from VicRoads during the operation, with 12 issued with improvement issues, 11 with compliance checks and six for ongoing investigations.
“Road policing enforcement is around behaviour change and compliance through encouragement,” Taylor says.
“There are the things we need to focus on. We need to communicate with our partners and people in the industry through the VTA and TWU [Transport Workers Union] and the whole of the industry.
“You need to advocate to those who aren’t as compliant to get out in the industry and change their behaviours.
“We can’t take our eye off this; we have to all keep working to eradicate the use of drugs on roads, freight network and in the heavy vehicle industry.”
There have been 120 deaths on Victorian roads this year, with 12 fatalities and 11 collisions involving heavy vehicles, with truck drivers believed to be at fault in three separate collisions, Taylor adds.
He says he has met senior industry representatives over the past year and has been heartened by their commitment to safety and setting examples to follow.
Victoria Police has set up a department where transport operators can contact officers with any issues via email.
