Have you reviewed your fleet safety procedures recently to ensure they comply with the new Chain of Responsibility (CoR) legislation?
If not, your business could be at risk of tougher new penalties.
While Chain of Responsibility legislation has been around for a while, its powers were widened in 2018 to better recognise that every person involved in a supply chain is responsible for the safety of the business’ transport activities.
In effect, the changes to CoR switch the focus from a reactive to a more proactive need for everyone in your chain to manage safety.
This means that every time your business transports goods using a heavy vehicle (of more than 4.5 tonnes) everyone, not just the driver, involved in the management and operation of that vehicle is now part of the chain and have a shared responsibility to prevent injuries and breaches of the law.
Under the CoR legislation, all Australian companies operating heavy vehicles need to comply with four key areas.
The risk of prosecution for a breach of safety protocol is also no longer dependent on a road offence actually taking place. Now, prosecutors only need to establish that your business, or someone within it, hasn’t taken adequate precautions to avoid a foreseeable risk for charges to be laid against all those responsible in the chain.
Even with the best safety practices in place, accidents can still occur. For those who had control or influence (either direct or indirectly) over any part of the supply chain at the time, the updated penalties could see individuals face up to five years in prison and a $300,000 fine, while companies could be fined as much as $3 million.
In the event that something unthinkable happens, it’s vital you can show you’ve done everything reasonably practical to prevent a breach of the CoR legislation.
The Heavy Vehicle National Regulator recommends that safety management should include regular reporting, including to executive officers, and should involve documenting or recording all actions taken to manage safety. In the case of a prosecution, each party in the chain needs to show they’ve taken every reasonable step to prevent a breach of the law.
Software is a key pillar in automating the process of managing your Chain of Responsibility obligations.
Data helps provide a deep understanding of your business to not only give you peace of mind that it is performing as it should, but also that it is operating as safely and as compliant as possible.
EROAD’s comprehensive suite of telematics solutions help you proactively manage the safety of your fleet with the right tools, big data and insights to create a ‘safety-first’ culture at the same time as driving efficiencies within your business.
It helps help manage CoR by providing you with accurate, reliable data on your vehicle network, and your partners' activities, to not only help you proactively manage compliance, but to also better understand your operations and help run your business more efficiently.
This includes:
Reduce speeding violations
EROAD’s complete telematics platform improves driver accountability. An EROAD study has found that vehicles where the driver was logged in had 50% less speed events than vehicles with no identified driver.
EROAD’s Ehubo2 helps identify not only vehicle activity, but also which driver was in the vehicle at the time via an onscreen driver login.
Improve vehicle safety
EROAD Inspect gives you the ability to track vehicle defects easily by capturing them during vehicle inspections and displaying them on the Defect Board — ready for you to take action.
Prevent fatigued driving
EROAD’s Ehubo2 helps manage driver fatigue by monitoring the distance and time a vehicle has been running. It allows Fleet Managers to monitor driving time on our desktop fleet management and reporting portal – Depot.
EROAD’s smart, intuitive platform helps mitigate fatigue risk through better trip planning so drivers and vehicles are safe even before they leave the depot.
Enhance driver behaviour
The key to creating a safer driving culture is to not only monitor driver behaviour, but to use big data and insights to continually help improve their awareness and skills. EROAD’s telematics solution bridges the gap between ‘after-the-event’ management reporting and in-cab, ‘behind-the-wheel’ influence on driver behaviour.
Our revolutionary, in-vehicle Ehubo2 device captures essential information on the driver’s behaviour and then provides immediate coaching feedback to remedy any issues immediately. The data is also available on our desktop fleet management and reporting portal – Depot.
Have full visibility across your supply chain
Visibility of your partner and sub-contractor fleets is essential in order to manage your obligations under the chain of responsibility.
EROAD’s Share allows you to have the same visibility of a partner or sub-contractor’s fleets as you have of your own. This gives you the ability to continue to deliver high-quality service to your customers, whilst ensuring the safety of all drivers working for you.
Access advanced driver analytics
EROAD’s Leaderboard allows you to compare your drivers with other fleets and vehicles in the EROAD network to help drive a culture of accountability and safety. You can also reward drivers for performance or changes in behaviour.
Being able to see, and show your drivers, how they compare with others is a simple way of demonstrating what they can do to improve their safety performance on the road.
Connects drivers with vehicles
With an easy-to-use driver login on the Ehubo2 in-cab device, the driver is clearly identified and linked to the vehicle they are driving, with personalised reporting available via Depot.
Ensures responsible mass to load constraints
EROAD Depot gives schedulers a single view of current and scheduled jobs combined with full vehicle details, through our Partner Gateway and integration with key job management platforms like ICOS live and MyTrucking.
Provide advanced in-cap driver behaviour coaching
The combination of EROAD’s Ehubo2 and Depot software delivers a single, consistent platform for your drivers. You can monitor live vehicle and driver behaviour, such as seatbelt use and speeding, and EROAD’s Ehubo 2 delivers coaching and scoring to a driver directly in-cab.
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Master your Chain of Responsibility compliance
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