Our priority is ensuring everyone who works with heavy vehicles, including the parties
who contract with transport operators, is accountable for safety. Image: Naphatson/
stock.adobe.com
The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) remains committed to being as transparent as possible about our enforcement priorities under the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL).
Transparency is vital in both ensuring the industry we regulate is well informed, and that the community who relies on it has confidence that there are consequences for serious offences.
We have published policies that we use in exercising our prosecution activities, including;
• What is investigated
• What response is appropriate
• Where prosecution is justified and when it is not
• Significant court outcomes as they occur (including follow up advisory material to communicate specific safety and compliance issues).
We have procedures in place to ensure anyone we interact with through our compliance and enforcement activities has an opportunity to understand and respond to our decisions.
We do this by providing online and in person resources to navigate the court process and by having review mechanisms in place to ensure we’re acting fairly and lawfully.
Our prosecution policy
Our priority is ensuring everyone who works with heavy vehicles, including the parties who contract with transport operators, is accountable for safety.
We understand that in some instances this has not translated into reported court outcomes for off-road duty holders.
Most of our interactions with industry (on and off-road) occur through our inform and educate intervention work streams. However, we do identify cases where prosecution is the most appropriate response.
This is so a court can pass judgement on allegations involving complex and serious offences.
Any compliance and enforcement activity we take outside of the inform and educate streams must be lawful and capable of withstanding any challenges during the court process.
This tends to translate into long lead times, meaning the matters we publish today may have resulted from events that occurred two or three years ago.
Off-road activities
Our enforcement response can also be determined by the level of cooperation we receive during an investigation.
In a recent matter involving off and on-road parties, we determined that both parties had failed to comply with their HVNL obligations.
Their response to enforcement action and readiness to make changes in their procedures were vastly different.
As a result, one party was prosecuted and the other (the off-road party in this case) was issued an improvement notice by the NHVR investigations team.
Together, these factors have meant the general and specific deterrence benefits we need to achieve through enforcement of the HVNL through off-road duty holders is still a work in progress.
In December 2023 we established an off-road investigative team and a compliance monitoring and education program for off-road duty holders.
We are pleased with the early results from this initiative and are hoping to take more public enforcement action this year.
As more of these investigations are finalised, we hope to publish more information and case studies on these topics.
We also want to continue to encourage operators to be open with us about the pressure they are put under.
The Heavy Vehicle Confidential Reporting Line is a secure, national, confidential line for participants in the heavy vehicle industry and its supply chain to report safety issues they have witnessed that might endanger the safety of heavy vehicle drivers or the community.
The number to contact is 1800 931 785 and is operational Monday to Friday 7am – 4.30pm.
Ray Hassall is the NHVR executive director statutory compliance.
[signup]
The post Committed to transparency in all our investigations appeared first on Big Rigs.