A Canberra technology company has provided an alarming insight into the danger posed by drowsy or inattentive heavy vehicle drivers, detecting an average of an average of 60 fatigue and distraction events every hour.
In an industry which moves more than 230 billion tonnes of goods around the country on public roads every year, most heavy vehicle driver fatigue events occur in the early morning between 4am and 5am, and most distraction events occur in the early afternoon, between 1pm and 3pm.
The first and most comprehensive report issued by a Fyshwick-based global leader in driver detection technology has found that heavy vehicle drivers are increasingly fatigued and distracted, but the full extent of the problem is unknown because most trucks don't have the detection technology.
The latest report has landed as the Transport Workers Union has warned the road freight industry - on which much of the Australian economy depends - has become increasingly unsustainable due to squeezed contract prices and high diesel prices.
Last year Australia had a 9 per cent rise in heavy vehicle-related fatalities.
Until now, the role that driver distraction and fatigue has played in these truck and bus crashes - many of which also tangle up with cars, SUVs, and utes - has been difficult to accurately define because the data was outdated.
But now Seeing Machines can provide a high degree of clarity because its Guardian technology detects all incidents and triggers an alarm, which is monitored 24/7 in Canberra and other locations around the globe.
There were 131,806 fatigue "events", 521,242 distracted driving "events" and 55,260 instances of hand-held mobile phone recorded in the past financial year by Guardian-equipped trucks.
Around 620,000 articulated and rigid trucks ply our roads. Most have have no tech at all to detect these crash-triggering factors.
Heavy rigid licence holders must have a zero alcohol requirement, and during long journeys must accurately record work hours in a written diary. They are also required to take mandated rest breaks.
Bill McKinley, from the Australian Trucking Association, said the Canberra company's technology was recently presented to members at a national technical conference in Melbourne.
"There was a great deal of interest and it was agreed that this type of technology has a very important future in our industry," he said.
"We would expect that at some time in the future, having this technology fitted would most likely become a condition for accessing more driver fatigue management arrangements."
The National Transport Commission is currently reviewing laws around the operation of heavy vehicles and its regulatory impact statement, released last month, has recommended changes to truck driver fatigue management and how to enforce it.
Seeing Machines' chief executive Paul McGlone said that governments around the world were grappling with the issue of road safety, seeking to mitigate preventable accidents.
"If you consider the risky driving events in our Insights report, you must also take into account that these figures are based on fleets using our Guardian technology today; fleets that are actively focused on improving the safety of their drivers," he said.
"There are many more companies out there with no real-time capability [to record this data]".
In July 2018, a stark reminder of how poor fatigue management by truck drivers has a tragic impact on others was delivered when a driver with an untreated sleep apnoea issue ploughed into the back of a family vehicle stopped at a Monaro Highway traffic light. Killed instantly in that crash was four-year-old Canberra boy Blake Corney, who was sitting in his car seat in the back.
A landmark federal Senate report issued in August 2021 entitled "Without Trucks, Australia Stops" noted that heavy vehicles were disproportionately involved in road crash casualties.
The Transport Workers Union says that since that report was tabled, 391 people have been killed in truck crashes, including 105 truck drivers.
The data for the Senate report - like so much of it in the transport and road safety sector, which makes timely analysis impossible - was outdated.
However, it found that between 2008 and 2017, an average of around 1700 people a year were hospitalised in Australia due to accidents involving heavy trucks or buses.
This year had a number of awful heavy vehicle incidents but none worse than in June when a 57-seat Volvo bus rolled off the road while carrying wedding guests through the Hunter Valley. There were 10 deaths and 25 injuries from that crash, the worst involving a bus since the terrible Kempsey bus crash of 1989, when 35 people were killed and 41 injured.
Paul McGlone said that as Europe has marched well ahead on mandated heavy vehicle safety aids like distraction detection, and Australia has fallen behind.
"Drowsiness and distraction are known problems for all road users, and more profound for professional drivers who spend much time on the road," he said.
"Australia is behind and with our vast country and extensive reliance on the trucking industry, this needs to change."
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