Following the tragedy in Sydney, some 2,800 waste removal vehicles have had to be taken off the road for safety inspections. Not surprisingly, this has resulted in rubbish being piled up in the streets across huge swathes of the country.
‘The regulation of commercial vehicles is something of a contentious issue in Australia, where each year over the past 10 years there have been more than 200 CV-related deaths,’ explained Nigel Base, SMMT commercial vehicle manager.
‘The safety regime is very different from the UK; it is more risk assessment-based with transport law compliance being a shared responsibility. All parties in the supply chain – consignor, packer, loader, scheduler, consignee, manager, as well as the driver and operator – must take all reasonable steps to prevent breaches of the law in areas such as mass, dimension, safe loading, speed compliance and work hours.’
The SMMT has called for commercial vehicles use to be more tightly controlled to prevent further tragedies and allow the road transport network to function as safely and efficiently as possible.