Three people were killed when their car was struck head-on by a heavily laden truck near Menangle on Sydney's western fringe. Photo / Daily Telegraph
Chain of responsibility puts onus on everyone involved in a delivery.
CANBERRA - They are an icon of both the Australian economy and national culture. But the massive trucks that lace the continent together are increasingly also seen as loose, lethal cannons driven by men and women pushed to exhaustion or kept at the wheel by illegal drugs.
In late January patience with the trucking industry ran out.
A heavily laden articulated truck allegedly veered across the Hume Highway near Menangle, on Sydney's western fringe, and ploughed head-on into a car driven by 59-year-old Calvyn Logan, with his parents Donald and Patricia Logan, both 81, as passengers.
Their car was crushed beneath the truck. All three were killed.
Police have charged the driver with dangerous driving causing death. They also allege that speed limiters on his vehicle had been tampered with, sparking raids on the Sydney company that owned the truck.
Within weeks a second operation was mounted against a South Australian company after one of its vehicles was clocked at 142km/h. Trucks are not allowed to exceed 100km/h.
Both operations uncovered dozens of offences, many involving tampering with speed limiters, including one modified to allow speeds of more than 150km/h.
Police also found overloaded vehicles and booked one driver for using drugs.
Now, after years of working at the fringes, the federal Government has introduced new laws to Parliament that extend well beyond road offences and technical issues and place truck driving firmly within industrial occupational health and safety rules.
Although resisted by the trucking and logistics industries, and by the Opposition, the laws take aim directly at what experts and successive reports have long concluded: the commercial pressures on truckers are so extreme that many will risk killing themselves or other road users to meet rigid deadlines.
Federal studies show that truck drivers have an incidence of fatal injuries 10 times the average for all industries, with the cost of heavy vehicle-related accidents involving fatalities and serious injuries in 2010 put at A$2.7 billion ($3 billion).
In the year to last June, 211 people died from crashes involving trucks. More than 1000 were injured.
Although the toll has fallen slightly, it remains much higher than truck numbers justify - at about 20 per cent of the national toll - and is significantly higher than fatality rates in the United States and Britain.
In New South Wales over the past decade, heavy truck fatalities increased by 21 per cent, compared to a rise in the state's overall road toll of 7 per cent. In the three years to 2011, 6600 NSW truck crashes killed 211 people and injured 3260 others.
And while trucks represent only 2.5 per cent of registered vehicles in the state, they account for up to 20 per cent of fatalities.
Victorian studies showed that while about 4 per cent of all drivers killed in the state over a 10-year period tested positive to stimulants, 23 per cent of truck drivers were affected.
Another study by the University of NSW's injury risk management centre found that 20 to 30 per cent of truck drivers used illegal stimulants to stay awake, mostly speed or amphetamine-related substances bought from friends or at truck stops. The study said that drivers who reported fatigue as a substantial or major personal problem were twice as likely to take drugs as those who had fewer problems with fatigue.
"Drivers who were paid on a payment by results or piece-rate form of payment, such as by trip or load, were two to three times more likely to report taking stimulants ... as drivers paid on a time basis," it said.
Driver Frank Black admitted to ABC TV's Lateline programme that he took risks at times to meet deadlines and avoid financial penalties or delivery delays. "They might get us out at eight or nine o'clock at night and still expect you in at seven o'clock in the morning, which legally can't be done," he said.
The federal Government's answer is a proposed new national Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, able to set pay or pay-related conditions to ensure safe driving practices.
It says the move will save lives by ensuring truck drivers are paid reasonably for the work they do, removing the economic incentive for drivers to take unacceptable risks.
State governments have also put "chain of responsibility" laws on the books, which treat trucks as workplaces and extend blame for accidents caused by fatigue and pressure across the board.
The laws place responsibility for compliance on everyone involved in a delivery, ranging from drivers and trucking companies to farmers, grain silos, grocery, retail and other stores, and factories.
Heavy criminal penalties can be imposed, rising in Western Australia to fines of up to A$200,000.