In the year to the end of September 2017, 216 people died from 197 fatal crashes involving trucks or buses

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Australian governments should introduce nationally consistent drivers’ licence laws and replace a controversial heavy vehicle drivers’ pay body, Anthony Albanese says.

On Monday the shadow infrastructure minister called for the transport infrastructure council of state and federal ministers to meet immediately to develop a national response to the increasing heavy vehicle road toll.

According to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics in the year to the end of September 2017, 216 people died from 197 fatal crashes involving heavy trucks or buses.

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Fatal crashes involving articulated trucks were up 0.6% a year over the three years to September 2017 and those involving heavy rigid trucks were up 2% over the same period.

Albanese said Australia was not going to meet its 2021 targets for a reduction in road deaths “if the current trends continue”.

He said the ministerial council would be able to hear from police and motoring organisations about what needed to be done to reduce the toll. “One of the things we need to address is national uniformity of rules, we need to move towards national licenses ... so we don’t have licence shopping.”,

Albanese said the increasing use of devices such as smart phones was “one of the factors” in the road toll and said governments had to impress upon young people, who are disproportionately represented in road deaths, not to use them while driving.

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He noted that in 2016 parliament had abolished the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal which set minimum pay rates for independent owner-drivers to remove the incentive to skip breaks or neglect maintenance.

“It would appear that since its abolition there has been a real spike in accidents involving heavy vehicles, particularly in New South Wales,” he said.

After the RSRT was abolished, a report by the small business ombudsman found it had caused owner-drivers financial pressure by making it harder to compete with larger trucking companies and recommended safety not be regulated through pay rates, despite reports to government that the two are linked.

Albanese questioned what the government was going to replace the body with, suggesting it was important to find a replacement “by consensus so you don’t have regulation changing when the government changes”.

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When the Coalition abolished the RSRT it promised to redirect funding to the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator to focus on monitoring of heavy vehicles and to build a national network of speed cameras.

In the year to September 2017 the number of deaths in NSW from crashes involving articulated trucks, such as semi-trailers, increased from 29 to 54, or 86%.

The chairman of the Australian Trucking Association, Geoff Crouch, has argued the increase cannot be attributed to abolition of the RSRT because declines were recorded in Victoria (down 4.5%), Queensland (down 14.8%), South Australia (down 23.1%) and Tasmania (down 80%) over the same period.

Crouch argued that since 80% of multi-vehicle crashes involving trucks are not the fault of the truck driver, “the crashes cannot be prevented by changing the way truck drivers work or are paid”.

He suggested “building better roads and better speed enforcement” as more appropriate solutions to reduce the road toll.