Despite significant increases in freight movements and traffic volumes, heavy-vehicle-involved road crash deaths have consistently declined, according to NTI.
Even though the NTI 2022 major accident report showed little change from the 2021 results, NTI's in-depth analysis of the historical data set showed a significant reduction in major crashes and deaths involving trucks.
Taking account of a 55% increase in trucks on the road (to 640,651) and a 51% rise in road freight volumes (to 224.6 billion-tonne-per-kilometre) since 2003, the data revealed that a combination of tighter government regulation and industry investment in safety, technology, professional development, and leadership have led to a steady decline of around 0.04 deaths/BTK per year in all heavy-truck-involved road crash deaths over the period.
Moreover, truck occupant crash deaths have remained largely static at around 0.17 for every billion-tonne-kilometres of freight moved.
“Things are improving, with fewer deaths in Australia from accidents involving trucks. But the flipside is that the number of truck drivers dying in road accidents has remained stable at around 35 per year over the past decade,” NTI transport research manager Adam Gibson, who has authored the report since 2019, said. “So, the data shows that the key beneficiaries of the safety improvements have been car drivers, not truck drivers.”
The report revealed that the most significant improvement in truck safety was reducing major incidents where fatigue and inappropriate speed for the prevailing conditions were dominant causes.
“Following the introduction of driving hours reforms and standardised logbooks in most states and territories in 2008, fatigue-related incidents dropped from a high of 27.3% to a low of 8% in the 2020 study before rising marginally to 8.2% in the latest report,” NTI said.
However, NTI data revealed that the improvement was not due to a reduction in hours worked, but more so a change in the previous industry mentality of “just keep driving until the job is done.”
“It's hard not to feel that either directly or indirectly, the adoption of standardised driving hours and logbooks has had a significant influence on addressing some of these cultural problems,” Gibson said.
Despite the dramatic improvement, fatigue remains a significant problem for the industry. Specifically, fatigue accounts for 25.9% of major incidents in “very remote Australia”, significantly above the 8.2% of major losses occurring in these areas.
Looking ahead, Gibson said the latest wave of safety features as standard in trucks vows to deliver further improvements in the future.
“There's a bunch of technology there and lots of opportunity (to deliver improvements in safety outcomes) if it's done well,” he said. “What the Major Accident Investigation series of reports show is that safer combinations, new legislation, and improved technology can have real impacts on safety. That's why it's so important we continue to review data and have informed industry conversations.”
