NHVR: Who Is Responsible Now?

Author: Kate Cook

Now is the time to act – the National Heavy Vehicle Register (NHVR) has changed their rules regarding the Chain of Responsibility within the transport industry, and to make sure your staff and business are protected from possible breaches and liability you need to make sure you are complying with their new legislation.

ON October 1st some changes to the Nation Heavy Vehicle Register’s rules surrounding the Chain of Responsibility (CoR) were put in place that will affect everyone involved either directly or indirectly in the transport industry. These changes concern the assignment of responsibility for offences that occur through pressures being put on the transport industry, and will hold the sources of this pressure responsible for the stress and consequences caused.

The NHVR identifies these stresses as coming from actions, inactions, demands, and requests from offroad parties which then pressure the transport industry to go outside of safety guidelines to fulfill what is being asked.

Off-road parties include executive officers, employers, consignees, consigners, loaders and unloaders, loading managers, local government, operators, packers, primary producers, contractors, and schedulers.

The length of the list of parties considered responsible by the NHVR for pressuring the transport industry reveals the extent of the effects that their new legislation will have – in short, anyone involved in any step of goods transportation can now be held responsible if not compliant with these new laws. This move to expand the CoR is aimed at comprehensively retraining the industry as a whole to remove dangers by focusing on changing behaviour, particularly with off-road parties and the pressure they can put on drivers.

These changes will directly affect those of us within the market. For example, if you own a wholesale business and your forklift driver doesn’t fulfill all their safety requirements, you could then be held responsible for not adequately training your staff to do their job properly. Or perhaps you order produce from Sydney and tell them you need it by the end of the day even though you know this transport would usually take longer. In this situation you are putting unnecessary pressure on the transportation staff between Sydney and Melbourne by asking them to rush to get you your order in time, so now you can be held responsible if any consequences occur because of this pressure.

So what should you do to protect your business and workers? Look at your safety management system and focus on areas of fatigue management, the maintenance of heavy vehicles, load restraints, mass management, speed management, and drug and alcohol management. For more information, the NHVR have documents on their website specifically addressing different groups of responsible members across the transport industry.

Overall, the message is that if you have the power to exert control or influence over transporting tasks then you need to ensure that your actions comply with the CoR, your workers are following all safety regulations, and that you are not placing pressure on anyone to work outside of safe practices.

The transport of our products is such an important factor to the Melbourne Market and although these new rules broaden the scope of who can be held responsible, they are focused on the safety of drivers and the safety of your workers and cannot be ignored.

Published: October 2018