The Australian Trucking Association has called for major changes to proposed new guidelines for building truck rest areas. The new guidelines would classify access to toilets, lighting and water as ‘desirable’, not a requirement. 

The ATA was responding to an Austroads report on updating the guidelines. Austroads is a research organisation funded by the Australian and state governments. 

In its response to the report, the ATA recommended that:

• Toilets, lighting and water should be a minimum requirement for level one and two truck rest areas
• Governments should provide truck rest areas every 20 kilometres, allowing drivers to comply with work diary rules
• There should be no general and caravan parking in the truck section of any rest area, and this must be enforced
• Specific engagement of women drivers should be undertaken on the provision of toilet facilities at rest area locations, and on whether these should be unisex or gender specific, and
• Guidelines must prevent road agencies from temporarily closing rest areas to store roadwork materials. 

The ATA believes there should be a strong set of guidelines, an independent audit on the current state of rest areas, and then a funded national plan from governments to address the gaps.

The ATA’s Ben Maguire recently spent a night at the Partridge VC rest area in NSW to walk in the shoes of a truck driver and experience first-hand what managing fatigue is like in a ‘best practice’ truck rest area. 

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