Australia’s governments need to put in place long term solutions to road safety as well as undertaking police blitzes, the Chair of the Australian Trucking Association, Geoff Crouch, said today.

Mr Crouch was responding to the multi-state truck compliance operation announced today, Operation Rolling Thunder.

“In 2017, the number of deaths in NSW from crashes involving articulated trucks like semitrailers increased dramatically, but we know that most of the increase in deaths was in multi-vehicle crashes. About 80 per cent of fatal multi-vehicle crashes involving trucks are not the fault of the truck driver,” Mr Crouch 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.

“The ATA calls on governments to:

• encourage business to adopt comprehensive safety and risk management systems such as the ATA’s TruckSafe system
• require contractors on government projects to hold safety accreditations or have similarly robust safety systems
• extend the responsibilities of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) to include no-blame, independent safety investigations
• consult genuinely on voluntary electronic work diaries
• prioritise road infrastructure funding on the basis of road crash investigation findings
• provide young drivers with information and education about how to share the road safely with
• trucks and
• improve the quality of truck driver training and assessment.”