Canberra,Australia -ATA The Friday Facts -29 October 2010: -- Truck drivers working under Basic Fatigue Management should have more ability to split their long rest breaks, so they can focus on resting when they are fatigued, ATA Chief Executive Stuart St Clair said today... Truck drivers accredited to work under Basic Fatigue Management are required to take a long rest break of seven hours in any 24-hour period. Truck drivers can mount a court defence for not taking this break if they instead took a six-hour break and a separate two-hour break in the same 24-hour period; for example, as a result of having to move their truck... Stuart said truck drivers should be able to split their long rest break into a two-hour break and a six-hour break as of right, provided they did not split their rest on two consecutive days... Stuart said the availability of split rest as a defence in court was not working, because drivers feared that defending a split rest breach would be costly and time consuming... He said the NTC’s preferred approach – to continue allowing the possibility of split rest breaks under Advanced Fatigue Management – would also not help, because AFM was simply beyond the reach of many drivers and companies... The ATA submission recommends that drivers using BFM should be able to work on a 14-day cycle, provided it included two full days of rest with sleep largely during night hours. The two rest days would not need to be consecutive... The submission supports the NTC’s recommendation that the night rest period under BFM should start at 9.00pm rather than 10.00pm, to accommodate drivers in rural areas who often commence work very early in the morning... It also calls on the NTC to take rapid action to resolve the problems caused by state road transport agencies using different time counting rules... (Photo from i585.photobucket.com: Australian's trucks convoy)
* Australian Government announces improved rest areas in Victoria
Melbourne,Victoria, Australia -ATA Friday Facts -29 Oct 2010: -- In the coming months, six rest areas along the Hume Freeway will be rebuilt and seven bridges within Victoria’s Green Triangle will be made strong enough to carry the recently announced innovative combinations that will run on the roads... Federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister, Anthony Albanese, said the projects will be funded as part of the second and final round of the Government's $70 million Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program... The $8.19 million in funding for the projects within the Green Triangle and along the Hume Freeway supplement the $11 million already committed by the Victorian Government... In conjunction with the announcement, VicRoads has released its new rest area strategy, which seeks to reduce fatigue-related incidents on the road by taking a holistic approach to the construction and location of rest stop areas across Victoria... (see here: Location of rest area and bridge upgrades - Photo from roadtraffic-technology: 1 Hume Freeway)Labels: drivers' fatigue
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