High fatalities from truck crashes

It has been three decades since Australia’s worst truck accident resulted in 21 fatalities. On October 20, 1989, a longhaul truck driver careered onto the wrong side of the Pacific Highway in NSW at 4am, crashing into an oncoming bus and killing half its passengers.

The annual road toll along that stretch of highway has since dropped, in part due infrastructure upgrades and improvement in general performance in the trucking industry however, an average of 200 people are still killed every year across Australia in crashes involving trucks.

Dr Christopher Walker, a regulation and policy expert from UNSW Arts & Social Sciences, says Australia needs to put pressure on the trucking industry to improve safety standards. Relying on regulation through licensing will never be sufficient, he says.

“[Truck companies] respond to regulators to a certain degree, but they are also very responsive to the people with power — people who are giving them work, those who contract with them,” he says.

“So businesses, such as Coles and Woolworths, should be saying, ‘We need to know that you will maintain your vehicles, we need to know that your drivers will not drive excessive hours', before entering into contracts with them."

The autopsy of the truck driver who crashed into the Sunliner bus was found to have 80 times the legal limit of ephedrine levels in his blood. Ephedrine is a stimulant truck drivers are widely known to use to stay awake while driving long distances.

It is not uncommon for drivers to haul loads and work beyond the daily limit, Dr Walker says, and an 80 or 100 hour plus working week is not uncommon. “I've interviewed truck drivers, and they've said to me, ‘I'd get my pay in one hand and my pills in the other’.

In 2019, WA Labor MP Glenn Sterle, a former truckie, proposed an inquiry into the industry, receiving widespread support from truck drivers, transport operators and other industry associations.

The final inquiry’s report Importance of a viable, safe, sustainable and efficient road transport industry is expected on 11 February 2021. The report will also look at an enforceable minimum wage rate and training for drivers, better regulation in the industry, safety standards and nationwide infrastructure improvements.

Dr Walker says Australia’s trucking industry is like a pyramid. The world’s biggest and most sophisticated trucking firms are at the top of the triangle. But a larger number of entry-level owners operate at the bottom, where cutting corners on safety is endemic.

“Because our economy is so dependent on trucking [to transport packaged and manufactured goods, as well as produce such as grain or livestock], we have these massive vehicles like nowhere else in the world,” he says.

“In the United States, B-doubles [prime mover trucks with two semi-trailers] are highly restricted in their movements,” he says. But here in Australia, even bigger B-triple trucks and road trains up to 53.5 metres are in regular use on our roads.

Modern trucks have sensors that monitor breaking and fuel consumption, and their location and speed are also monitored around the clock every day of the year, he says.

“Some of our truck drivers could be driving a vehicle that is as sophisticated and as valuable as a light aircraft, with the technology they're dealing with.”

“So, the owner of those trucks is more likely to ensure the vehicle performs efficiently and is safe because the costs are so high and the product is incredibly valuable.”

At the bottom of the pyramid, the smaller truck operators often work in demolition, excavation, and local freight and packaged goods movement, Dr Walker says.

“There’s all these little guys starting-up and leaving the industry. And they're the ones who can create a lot of risk as they try to become profitable,” he says.

“So the driver is [likely to be] the owner of the vehicle. If he wants to save money, he might neglect to maintain the vehicle. So he's usually the biggest risk.

“He might be the fourth owner of a second-hand truck and it’s maybe done one-and-a-half to two million kilometres. If he doesn’t maintain it, then when he’s going down the motorway his tyre goes ‘pop’, or he nods off to sleep. He’s the guy who is going to cause a problem.”

Dr Walker says owner operators only need to get their truck license, purchase a truck and register an ABN to start a trucking company in Australia.

“They don't have to prove they’re financially viable or that they don't have a compromised driving record,” he says, unlike in the UK where the industry is regulated through licensing in a process that is similar to the taxi industry in Australia.

He says trucking is such a competitive industry that entry-level owner-operators are regularly seen undercutting others on price. “They often do it by putting other