New HVNL & CoR rules threaten Heavy Haulage Industry
4th October 2018
The Fleet Office helps businesses meet new chain of responsibility requirements for Heavy Haulage
If you work in the heavy haulage industry, you need to be aware of the changes to the HVNL (Heavy Vehicle National Law) and the CoR rules (Chain of Responsibility) that came into effect on 1st October 2018.
In this article you will find a summary of the six major changes and information on our Heavy Vehicle Compliance software. This software has been developed to ensure your business meets new requirements with as little disruption and cost to your business as possible.
Six CoR changes that will affect how your business operates
Vehicle maintenance: Regardless of where your business sits in the heavy haulage chain, everyone now has some responsibility for the proactive procedures and roadworthiness of vehicles used in the supply chain.
Proactive responsibility: All parties within the chain must now take all reasonably practical steps to ensure safety of transport activities within the chain by proactively, rather than reactively implementing safety procedures.
Executive due diligence: Executives must be seen to have exercised reasonable diligence to prevent safety breaches and ensure that their business complies with the CoR. Once again, this is a proactive, rather than a reactive stance.
CoR and WHS alignment: Under WHS law, executives are only responsible for their own employees, contractors or visitors on their site, under these new CoR amendments however, executives are now responsible for any parties in the supply chain. WHS management systems (risk assessments, safe work procedures, compliance reporting, etc.,) need to be adapted to incorporate these CoR changes.
New industry codes: These will identify common CoR risks and appropriate controls, along with guidance on conducting suitable risk assessments by individual businesses. In the case of an incident, businesses will need to demonstrate that they have adhered to these codes.
Noncompliance penalties: These penalties have been increased across all three categories of offences: for reckless behaviour resulting in death or serious injury, corporations can be fined $3M and individuals $300,000 with 5 years imprisonment (category 1 offence); exposing an individual to the risk of death or serious injury involves a $1.5M fine for corporations and $150,000 for individuals (category 2 offence); contravention of duty entails a $500,000 fine for corporations and $50,000 for individuals (category 3 offence).
These changes are designed to increase safety throughout the heavy vehicle supply chain, meaning that all parties in these supply chains now have a legal obligation to do all that is reasonable to minimise or eliminate any potential safety risks.
In short, any parties responsible for any safety breaches anywhere along the chain can be held liable under these new amendments. If your business operates within the heavy haulage industry, it is now essential that you put in place processes to identify, control and manage potential risks and compliances, and ensure that all documents and reports are up-to-date.
The Fleet Office helps businesses meet these new CoR requirements with Heavy Vehicle Compliance software
With vehicle maintenance standards now mandatory under the new CoR rules, you need a proactive maintenance and inspection program to monitor the roadworthiness of your vehicles.
Our specialist fleet management software system ensures that your business fully complies with these new CoR amendments – it’s easy to implement, super easy to use and comes at a low cost (just $25/month).
We design our software to be used by everyday Australians, so there is no high-tech training needed!
You can monitor your entire fleet on any device, anytime, anywhere and it flawlessly integrates with software such as Viewpoint, Timberline, Curve, Jonas and MEX, making compliance with both your WHS and CoR obligations hassle free.
Our specialist software ensures complete CoR compliance across these six major areas:
Maintenance
Policies and procedures
Awareness and training
Compliance monitoring
Executive reporting
Contracts
As a local Australian business, we have been driven by industry needs. We have provided tailormade heavy vehicle fleet tracking & management systems to some of the biggest companies in the southern hemisphere.
We are here to help you meet the new Heavy Vehicle CoR requirements.
If you want to make your CoR compliance as easy as possible and you want a competitively priced system with no contracts, you need to call us on 1300 110 248 or send us an email.