VicRoads has announced it will be targeting dangerously overloaded trucks.
Vic Roads Transport Safety Service officers currently issue 227 defect notices for trucks every month in Victoria, on top of an average of 232 individual non-compliant driver infringements .
The road authority says it will be on the hunt for oversized and overloaded trucks with suspicious loads.
The “crackdown” comes after the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court penalised an undisclosed company $90,000 for a truck caught in Port Melbourne over height and over weight late last year.
It was “one of the heaviest penalties in recent years” according to VicRoads, which could issue a maximum fine of over $242,000.
Transport Safety Services manager Russell Greenland says the incident is an example of drivers and supply chain operators needing to take responsibility to ensure innocent road users aren’t hurt or killed.
“This vehicle was over length and was carrying more than 15 tonnes of extra weight than the maximum allowed,” Greenland explains.
“It’s our responsibility to educate drivers on the dangers of oversized, overweight and unsecured loads and stop this behaviour from happening,” he adds.
“These risky breaches endangered other drivers.”
With increasing onus put on warehouses and material handling businesses under Chain of Responsibility regulations, truck drivers and operators are warned to take double precautions after a 25-year-old was crushed when unloading 22 sheets of porcelain at a Cheltenham stone distributor in early 2016.
The business also paid a $90,000 fine and over $13,000 in legal fees, after the worker was left a quadraplegic when the porcelain sheets, each weighing 80kg, crushed his spinal cord and left him paralysed from the chest down.
WorkSafe health and safety executive director Marnie Williams said in October last year the tragedy underscores why employers must be accountable, especially around transportation and storage of dangerously heavy items.
“The serious nature of his injury has irrevocably altered the course of his life,” Williams says.
“Any plan that involves workers handling large, heavy objects which are unsecured and effectively balancing on racks is a flawed one,” she states.
“The worker injured in this incident was lucky not to have been killed.”
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