Industry Issues, News, NHVR

National Fatigue Blitz

national fatigue blitz

The latest nationally co-ordinated operation organised by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator was called Operation Wake Up and took the form of a national fatigue blitz during April. The idea was to get a picture of exactly what is going on out on the highway randomly checking as many drivers as possible at strategic points all over the country at roadside checks.

During the process 4400 trucks were stopped at 105 locations and asked for driving records. The roadside stops were similar to those conducted regularly by enforcement officers but mainly concerned with fatigue management. All of the roadside officers were using the NHVR tablet system to record their 

“Of the fatigue-related vehicles there were 3272 compliant drivers which was 93 per cent, a similar level to the national operations conducted last year,” said Paul Salvati, NHVR Chief Operations Officer. “Those drivers operating under Basic Fatigue Management recorded more than 96 per cent compliance rate while there were no breaches for drivers operating under Advanced Fatigue Management. 

“I would particularly like to thank the 194 officers from a variety of police, transport and workplace health and safety agencies across the country that took part in Operation Wake Up. A lot of the data was collected through the NHVR Compliance app, which allowed real time analysis and information to be coordinated between the NHVR and on-road officers.” 

Almost one-in-five fatigue offences were the result of exceeding historical work hours, while 17 per cent were for not making a work diary entry. 

Overall compliance came in at 80 per cent with 18 critical offences leading to further investigation and a further 11 severe mechanical or mass offences which required trucks to be grounded.

The breakdown of fatigue breaches found was:

• 18.3 per cent – exceeding driving hours (historical) 

• 17.9 per cent – not making work diary entries 

• 8.7 per cent – exceeding driving hours (current) 

• 8.7 per cent – not carrying a work diary 

• 6.3 per cent – false or misleading work diary entries 

Of the 847 intercepts which resulted in an offence being recorded, 497 were mechanical and 234 involving fatigue.

The NHVR point out the average stopping time for a truck which was determined to be compliant was 13 minutes, whereas the average for those where some form of non-compliance was detected was 27 minutes.

 

national fatigue blitz

 

 

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