EROAD FLEET DAY 2021
FLEET FOCUS The 2021 EROAD Fleet Day, cancelled last year, returned to the Claudlands Park convention centre in Hamilton during May.
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ith a line-up of 10 speakers, Fleet Day 2021 kicked off with a word by the chosen charity for 2021, the Brake Charity. New Zealand director Caroline Perry said the road-safety record in New Zealand was not great. “Travel restrictions in 2020 didn’t make a huge difference. Our numbers are high compared with Australia and Europe. We have lots to do in New Zealand,” she said, stating that there had been 109 road deaths so far in 2021. Perry said that the social cost of crashes amounted to $4.9 billion. Every death cost $4.56 million, while serious and minor injuries cost $477,600 and $25,500. She advised fleets to calculate the true costs of incidents. To do so, they should focus on reporting and recording and make drivers understand the importance of this, identify the extent and causes of incidents, and reward drivers for reporting even near-misses. Drivers should be interviewed following serious incidents,
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and fleets should review incident reports regularly. “Brake can assist with support, policies and procedures, and employee assistance,” she said.
Looking after the team Representing WorkSafe, Ruth Cook stated that 1500 people a day in transport and warehousing were not at work because of injury during 2020. “Real change in vehicle-related harm requires courageous action – those with the most influence need to lead. We can’t push down the risk to the people least able to influence their situation or business stability,” she said. In helping companies prioritise their actions, Cook suggested following a hierarchy of controls and prioritising the most effective steps (the ones at the top of the scale). “Your legal duty is first to consider if the risk can be eliminated. Consider, can the journey be avoided altogether? Can you separate vehicle movements from an area where pedestrians are? Can you install overhead walkways? If not, possibly consider other options going down the hierarchy, ending at admin controls because these are the least effective.” Cook reminded the delegates that they weren’t only responsible for their June 2021
workers but also for how the nature of the work influenced those workers. “Do you know when operators go onto someone’s site that there are safe systems in place to look after them? Do you know if the subcontracted drivers are safe? If you buy transport, does the contract make sure the vehicles are fit and the work is well planned, so people aren’t under undue pressure? It’s going to that extent that we’ll make change.”
Investments pay back Iain Rossiter, NZTA’s compliance manager central North Island, took to the stage with senior sargent Lex Soepnel, CVST area manager, to continue talking about crashes and compliance. “While the numbers have tailed off a bit, between 2013 and 2018, the road toll went up 40%, though total kilometres only rose by 10%,” said Rossiter. Heavy vehicle crashes had gone up with fleets’ numbers and accounted for 19-22% of the road toll. Rossiter pointed out that the truck driver was not necessarily at fault in these instances. Soepnel added that in 2020, 2246 crashes involved heavy vehicles (with 56 deaths). Looking at a national average, 55% of heavyvehicle drivers were at fault or partially at fault. “Prevention
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by Gavin Myers
is key,” said Soepnel. “We’re working with other agencies and industry, and in 2020, we conducted 46,113 HMV stops and 71,458 inspections.” The duo commented on the importance of using available technology (dashcams, electronic logbooks, etc.) to avoid collisions and how valuable this may be in crash investigation. Simon Coyle, general manager of StraitNZ, also joined the stage and spoke about how emphasising systems changed his business after a health and safety prosecution in 2014. “It was a long journey, but we had to put a line in the sand. The hardest part was getting our people on board. We now have good procedures among the management team.” Coyle said some of the key differences included screening employees, looking at processes, and pre-employment inductions. Drivers’ hours had been reduced to an average of 58, wages were lifted, and bonuses added. The company had been 26 months lost-time injury-free along linehaul and freight haul. “You need to make the investments; the payback is 10-fold. Our culture has lifted unbelievably. We put it down to health and safety.” Coyle commented on the issues he saw affecting the transport industry in the future. “There is a shortage
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