Fleet managers who help their CEOs understand the risk associated with fleet could save their superiors from fines or even prosecution.
CEOs assume a direct liability risk for fleet through the Chain of Responsibility provisions under the
Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) and the
Work Health and Safety Act (2011).
An independent taskforce
extended the Chain of Responsibility provisions to include heavy vehicle standards and vehicle restraints in June 2014.
Under the legislation, the CEO could be prosecuted if their fleet is found to be unsafe on the roads, common mistakes include overloading of vehicles or failure to secure loads.
“The CEO is directly liable because the council owns the asset and under the law the CEO could be prosecuted,” said Grant Andrews, Managing Director of Uniqco. “I guarantee there are very few CEOs that know that.”
Secondly, CEOs must ensure their fleet departments meet standards under the
Work Health & Safety Act (2011).
If a fleet department, for example, fails to work to the manufacturer’s recommended service intervals for a specific piece of machinery or neglects to hold records that evidence they have maintained the equipment to these standards then something falls of that vehicle, or the vehicle fails in some way and injures someone, it will be the CEO that is held liable.
“Those are the two really critical points for CEOs to understand,” said Andrews. “They are directly responsible because ‘A’ there is a risk that they are going to breach a law in the on-road chain of responsibility, and ‘B’ they are going to breach the law on work health and safety, because they are not regularly servicing and have no evidence they have maintained the equipment to these standards.”
The danger is that CEOs assume that everything is being taken care of by the fleet department.
“I’m not saying that the CEOs are wandering around blind, but traditionally what has happened is they have arrived at an organisation and assumed the fleet is running perfectly. Their assumption is based on the trucks going to work every day and it doesn’t cost them too much money in break downs.
“Unfortunately those trucks might be going to work every day overloaded and not serviced, which would be the worst case scenario,” said Andrews.
IPWEA is currently developing a new program to help fleet managers identify the corporate risk associated with fleet and provides them with the tools needed to illustrate this information to their CEO or Corporate Risk Manager. The program will be under review at the IPWEA’s May Fleet Professional Development workshops.
Firstly, the program will help fleet managers identify the risks associated with keeping machinery beyond its original intended life span by conducting an IPWEA risk analysis (see
IPWEA's Fleet and Vehicle Management Manual).
Secondly, the program will provide attendees with the skills required to create a short report that outlines the corporate risk associated to specific assets using the Red/Amber/Green traffic light system.
The report will be based on Uniqco’s successful work with the Western Australian State Government to create a report that illustrates the risk posed by contractors.
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WA News Alert ***
Fleet managers in WA are encouraged to check that their risk management compliance systems are sufficiently robust to comply with the new Chain of Responsibility legislation implemented in WA from 27 April.
Historically, the onus has been on the driver to secure loads. under the new legislation, the responsibility extends to include everyone involved in the transport of goods, including packers through to those receiving the goods.
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