The Australian Government’s decision to mandate stability control technology for a range of new trucks and trailers will save 126 lives and prevent 1,101 serious injuries in the coming years, the Chair of the Australian Trucking Association, Geoff Crouch, said today.
The Government released the new Australian Design Rules (ADRs) today. The new requirement will apply to selected categories of new model heavy trucks from 1 November 2020, and all new trucks in those categories from 1 November 2022. The requirement will apply to all new model heavy trailers weighing more than 10 tonnes from 1 July 2019 and all new heavy trailers weighing more than 10 tonnes from 1 November 2019.
Mr Crouch said that stability control technology was a life saver.
“Stability control is a vehicle safety system that monitors the stability and sideways acceleration of a heavy vehicle and kicks in to brake the vehicle if it detects a rollover starting,” Mr Crouch said.
“The ATA lobbied hard to extend the original proposal that the Infrastructure Department released for consultation.
“As a result of lobbying from the ATA and other stakeholders, the final design rules extend the mandate to include short wheel base rigid trucks weighing more than 12 tonnes.
“This decision is projected to save another two lives over the years and prevent an extra 17 serious injuries compared to the original proposal.
“I want to thank the Government and the responsible minister, Paul Fletcher, for listening to the industry’s views. I also want to thank the expert members of the ATA’s Safety Committee, led by Tim Knowles, and our Industry Technical Council, led by Kel Baxter, who developed the ATA’s position on the issue.”
Mr Crouch said the next step in advancing truck safety technology needed to be Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) for all new trucks.
“Autonomous emergency braking applies a truck’s brakes in emergency situations. Monash University research shows that rolling it out across the truck fleet would reduce fatal crashes by up to 25 per cent and serious injury crashes by up to 17 per cent,” he said.
New road train converter dollies will be exempt from the stability control requirement, because of issues with the technology in the rough conditions encountered by road trains in rural and remote areas. Non-standard low loaders will also be exempt.