THE peak Australian truck-maker body, the Truck Industry Council (TIC), has called for radical changes to the truck industry including a move to retire older trucks from the roads and GPS monitoring of trucks to check on operational compliance with safe practices.

The industry says that in spite of the fact that 93 per cent of fatalities involving a truck were not the fault of the truck driver, key factors could improve the safety record of trucks.

These include national driver standards and operational rules, upgrading the fleet to get driver access to the latest vehicle safety technology and the use of GPS to ensure drivers are not exceeding speed limits and not exceeding time at the wheel.

The industry says that 42 per cent of the nation’s truck fleet was made before 2003. Those trucks were missing many of the safety technologies that came as standard on a truck sold in 2017.

The TIC has called on the federal government to provide incentives to operators to invest in safer vehicles in the wake of soaring truck deaths in 2017 as supporters and opponents seek solutions to an unexplained spike in NSW heavy-vehicle accidents.

The TIC, which represents 17 truck brands in Australia, is supported by comments from Toll Group managing director Michael Byrne and follows the report that road deaths in NSW involving trucks were up 86 per cent in one year, to 54 in 2017 up from 29 in 2016.

Mr Byrne has sent a letter to the prime minister Malcolm Turnbull outlining his six-point plan that included a new safety commission, a government subsidy for a safer truck future, and mandatory tracking devices to monitor drivers’ speed, fatigue and load limits.

As previously reported in GoAutoNews Premium, the call for safer transport vehicles has also come from the chairman of the Australian Trucking Association (ATA), Geoff Crouch.

He said Australia’s governments need to put in place long term solutions to road safety as well as undertaking police blitzes and said much of the blame should not be levied at the truck operators.

“In 2017, the number of deaths in NSW from crashes involving articulated trucks like semi-trailers increased dramatically, but we know that most of the increase in deaths was in multi-vehicle crashes,” he said.

“Truck compliance operations cannot possibly prevent these crashes, so governments need to take a broader, long-term approach to safety as well as supporting police blitzes.”

He was commenting on the recent Operation Rolling Thunder blitz – Australia’s biggest heavy-vehicle compliance operation – now underway by the NSW Police, NSW Roads & Maritime Services (RMS), and police forces in Victoria, Queensland, ACT, and South Australia.

The CEO of NatRoad, Warren Clark, has also questioned the blitz. NatRoad is the National Road Transport Association which is a non-profit member-based advocate group for the transport industry.

“The road toll is not going to be reduced in a context of blaming the truck industry in isolation for the regrettable deaths that occur on Australia’s roads,” Mr Clark said.

“In fact, the statistics show that in collisions involving fatalities the truck was not at fault on 93 per cent of occasions.

“The statistics also show that in an analysis of truck crash incidents mechanical failures were inconsequential with a 3.5 per cent incident level. In that context, tyre failure accounted for 52 per cent of losses attributed to a mechanical fault.

“NatRoad is very concerned about the recent spike in serious truck accidents in NSW. We have not seen this spike in other states, which are subject to the same heavy vehicle safety standards and fatigue management rules, so we must find out whether the problem is unique to NSW.

“Objective and concerted investigation of the recent incidents is essential.

“We offer our co-operation to the police but short-term solutions based on blaming the industry are not going to assist a long-term problem.”

Mr Clark also wants a dedicated authority – such as the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) – to promptly and fully investigate serious truck accidents “and to share the results and recommendations publicly so that we can all take the appropriate action to stop these tragedies”.

“Isolated law enforcement blitzes are useful to focus attention on the problem but are not a solution in the long term.”

But TIC president and CEO of Isuzu Trucks in Australia, Phil Taylor, sees truck safety as the core issue and wants the federal government to prioritise an upgrade of Australia’s truck fleet in its 2018/19 budget.

“Increasing the take-up rate of today’s more advanced trucks means everyone benefits from our roads being populated with safer fleets,” he said.

“Having been around trucks and the Australian road transport industry since the late 1970s, I can verify that significant improvements have been made in regard to truck and road safety.

“We must push towards zero deaths on our roads, truck related or otherwise, and as an industry collective, we must believe we can achieve that.”

The TIC reported that in 2017, the average age of the Australian truck fleet was 14.9 years. With the expansion of the national freight network, it means this figure will increase.

“The choice is not whether Australia uses trucks – they’re essential to our standard of living – the choice is whether we have the most modern fleets possible,” Mr Taylor said.

“TIC believes the implementation of an incentivised system, which rewards safe and modern fleets, is the most proactive and cost-effective mechanism for lowering Australia’s road toll.”

As part of the search for solutions to truck accidents, the ATA will host a fatigue-focussed program titled “FatigueHACK” as part of its Trucking Australia conference in April.

ATA chair Mr Crouch said it was designed to attract software developers, designers, industry experts, researchers, regulators and truck drivers in order to create new technologies, designs, products, partnerships and policy.

“The industry and our regulators must keep ahead of technological change. The hackathon participants will look to create something new in a competitive team environment,” he said.

“The current system minutely prescribes the hours and minutes that drivers can work, but we know that 58 per cent of fatigue-related crashes occur within 500 kilometres of the point of departure, well before the end of a driver’s shift.”

By Neil Dowling