Operators have 'moral' duty to be safe on the roads, take on upgrades: Australian Trucking Association

The association's chair, David Smith, said truck operators should be serious about taking up the best safety technology and implementing frequent and rigorous health checks for drivers.

"I think I have a moral obligation to put the safest vehicle on the road that I can with the safest driver that I can. I think we owe that to the community," Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith, whose D&S Smith Haulage runs from the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, said setting a date by which advanced safety technology must be fitted to all new trucks would transform the industry.

"If you got to that, you will save lives. How much blunter do you want me to put it? You will save lives, there's no question about it," he said.

Mr Smith's own company is accredited with Truck Safe, a voluntary industry group which sets higher standards.

Drivers at Truck Safe-accredited companies undergo a full medical every three years if they are under 50 and every year once they are over 50.

Mr Smith said those medical assessments had identified medical issues in his own staff of drivers, which had been managed.

A driver with hearing loss was helped back into the cab with hearing aids, and two other drivers with sleep apnoea got the sleeping machines they needed so they can plug in when they turn in for the night in the trucks.

"No driver has lost his position as a driver in my company. That's not the intention," he said.

The Blake's Legacy campaign is calling for the adoption of the recommendations of a coronial inquiry into the death of four-year-old Blake Corney on the Monaro Highway south of Canberra in 2018.

Chief Coroner Lorraine Walker found the crash may have been avoided if the driver had been forced to undergo testing for sleep apnoea and his truck had been fitted with modern safety technology.

Blake's parents, Andrew Corney and Camille Jago, have said implementing the recommendations was achievable and would reduce the number of dangerous drivers.

Mr Smith said his company no longer bought new trailers without electronic braking systems or prime movers without adaptive cruise control.

Introducing a requirement that all new equipment had safety technology would take a decade to cover Australia's prime movers and two decades for trailers, he said.

"It would be a really good start to mandate prime movers, because that would then encompass things like autonomous braking, lane departure and things like that," Mr Smith said.

The Australian Trucking Association has also welcomed a commitment from the ACT Transport Minister, Chris Steel, to advocate for tougher safety regulations.

The push has already led to the National Transport Commission launching a review of the way heavy vehicle drivers are screened for sleep apnoea, diabetes and heart conditions.

Mr Steel said he had specifically asked his counterpart ministers and the commission to consider the Australian Trucking Association's proposal to introduce the same stringent testing requirements for heavy vehicle drivers that already apply to train drivers.

But Mr Smith said one of the challenges for new rules would be to capture smaller truck operators.

Drivers who had their own truck for short runs in metropolitan areas or companies that operate a fleet to run deliveries also needed to be covered by safety mandates and driver health checks.

"You're not going to get them into accreditation, but by mandating the safety features on all vehicles, you would at least pick up the safer vehicles. What your next focus needs to be is to pick up the safer drivers," he said.

BLAKE'S LEGACY CAMPAIGN: