Authorities seeing sense

dated June 30th, 2009

Some semblance of common sense appears to be rearing its head in the regulation of fatigue in Australia. The debacle caused by the late announcement of the new Fatigue Regulations in the lead up to their implementation last September has left many operators struggling to cope in the new compliance environment. Luckily, for many operators the 12 month transition period, up in September, has given them a chance to reorganise their operations and to lobby the authorities through their associations.

The first chink of light was when the NSW Minister for Roads, Michael Daley, told truckies at a conference in Bathurst that the RTA would now allow an extra two hours for livestock truck drivers if there were unforeseen circumstances causing an animal welfare problem. With the kinds of distances some of these guys cover that extra time in the back pocket can mean the difference between getting animals to the abattoir in good condition and having to sit out a seven hour break by the side of the road with four decks of distressed cattle.

Now it seems, the NSW Road Traffic Authority and the National Transport Commission have also decided to come to the party and talk about making the Basic Fatigue Management module a bit more flexible and to take account of the real world truck drivers in Australia live in. It looks as though concessions will be made both by the regulators and the operators to make this a much more practical and workable system.

What is a great pity, is the industry had to wait until the legislation was enacted before there was any real consultation between the people actually doing the work and the regulators. Why wasn’t there some real consultation in the lead up to introducing a game-changing fatigue management system to cover all of the problems and the special cases we have throughout Australia? Let’s hope they talk to the industry, properly, next time they want to make wholesale legislative changes.