Industry association says union claims that pay rates are linked to safe driving are non-conclusive
There is no link between how much truck drivers are paid and how safely they drive, the National Road Transport Association (NatRoad) has reiterated in a rejection of claims made by the Transport Workers Union of New South Wales,.
NatRoad made the statement in response to TWU NSW submission to the NSW parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Road Safety.
Also known as the Staysafe Committee, the NSW committee is holding an inquiry into the use of technology to improve road safety, particularly for heavy vehicles, for which a series of submissions were made in February.
See our report on NatRoad’s submission to the inquiry here.
Among those submissions was one made by the TWU NSW, in which the union said that the link between rates of pay and road safety outcomes was “explicit”.
“Too often drivers are forced to drive too fast and too long to meet impossible deadlines set by freight companies – too often they are unable to even cover their costs, meaning they are often left without a choice but to drive unsafely and unsustainably just to make ends meet,” the submission says.
But this was rejected by NatRoad, which says the submission was a re-hash of a flawed argument “based on non-conclusive studies which point to alleged ‘risky behaviours’ by drivers”.
The association says that inquiries by the Productivity Commission and the Small Business Ombudsman had both found that regulating rates of pay for owner drivers did not improve safety.
“Prescribed minimum rates of pay which are only legislated for one part of the sector are unfair and discriminatory and don’t assist road safety,” NatRoad says.
It added that resources allocated to the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which the Turnbull government abolished in 2016, were now being allocated to the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator for use on road safety initiatives.
NatRoad also points to the latest National Truck Accident Research Centre analysis, which it says finds that the truck driver was not at fault in 93 per cent of heavy truck collisions involving fatalities.
“This is not reflective of a culture of ‘risky behaviours’ and undermines the claim made by TWU,” NatRoad says.