Posted by Hubfleet
Investing in rest.
Last December, Australian state governments approved plans to invest in heavy vehicle rest areas to support the fatigue management of drivers.
The plans to “build and upgrade heavy vehicle rest areas to ensure drivers have the facilities they need to rest, recuperate and return safely home” are set to commence this year.
It forms part of the National Road Safety Action Plan 2023-25, which was cooperatively developed between Australian state governments and agreed upon by Infrastructure and Transport Ministers.
National focus.
Heavy vehicle safety is a serious concern for national road safety endeavours. It’s estimated that 17% of all road fatalities involve a heavy vehicle. Although fatigue-regulated heavy vehicles tend to crash less often than other vehicles, they’re more likely to result in death or serious injury due to their size.
Listed as a priority in the National Road Safety Strategy 2021-30, heavy vehicle safety improvements aim to “support the safe movement of freight and passengers and reduce harm to all road users”.
When it comes to the safety of heavy vehicles, there is no greater risk factor than fatigue. Driver fatigue is a major safety hazard for the road transport industry. The main causes of fatigue are lack of (quality) sleep, driving when you would normally be sleeping, the duration of driving, and sleep disorders (e.g., sleep apnoea). Heavy vehicle drivers are routinely affected by many of these risks and the consequences can be fatal.
Fatigue management support.
As such a prevalent concern, the industry is always seeking new ways to improve fatigue management in heavy vehicle drivers.
It’s codified, exhaustively. Fatigue management is the subject of many heavy vehicle rules and regulations. The result is that these regulations are comprehensive, complex and differ depending on what state you’re in. This makes them quite complicated for fleet businesses and their drivers to follow correctly.
Hubfleet offers a simple way to abide by these regulations and helps to keep drivers from driving while impaired by fatigue. Rather than chance miscalculations about work and rest periods, drivers simply enter a few details into the app and it calculates when they are due to rest or able to commence work again.
If you’re looking for a simple fatigue management solution for your team, Hubfleet is your answer. Contact our team for more information.