National Transport Insurance (NTI) has recently released its Major Accident Investigation report that contains a number of key findings from the National Truck Accident Research Centre (NTARC). The Research centre investigated 461 major road accidents that involved vehicles covered by NTI during 2011. The accidents combined had a total cost of $54.7 million in claims that were for more than $50,000. The website http://www.fullyloaded.com.au/ looks at the report in detail:

While the overall crash figure is up, the report argues that, with a greater proportion of the nation’s fleet now on NTI’s books, “it could be argued that the current rate of 2.7 major crash incidents per [thousand] units, demonstrates a continuing improvement in crash rates”. “The report found that if researchers were to inflate the nominal $50,000 threshold of 2003 by the gazetted annual domestic inflation rate to 2011, the crash rate per [thousand] units has improved by 42.7 percent,” its introduction states. Another important finding was that of the fatal multi-vehicle incidents in 2011 involving NTI-covered trucks, the percentage where the truck driver was found to be at fault was zero. In 2009, it was 18 percent. The good news also surrounds a fall in speed-related crashes, which, though still bad, fell from 31.8 percent in the report for 2009 to 25.4 percent. However, the fires sounded alarm bells for study author and NTI National Manager, Industry Relations Owen Driscoll (pictured). “One of the major concerns in this report is the number of serious accidents attributed to non-impact fires, such as engine and cabin fires,” Driscoll says. “This highlights the importance of rigorous and consistent maintenance in the day-to-day processes of all transport operations. “In order to improve safety on our roads, we must first ensure the vehicles on our roads are safe.” Key statistics to come out of the report for NTI were: Inappropriate speed for the conditions was found to be the leading cause of serious accidents at 25.4 percent. This is down from 31.8 percent in the previous report 12.1 percent of serious accidents were attributed to non-impact fires, with over 60 percent of these losses originating from engine and cabin fires. This is a marked increase from previous studies The number of major losses has escalated in both Queensland and Western Australia 22.4 percent of serious truck crashes occurred on Australia’s National Highway 1. Queensland’s Bruce Highway was the worst with proportionally more incidents than any other major road Western Australia’s Great Northern Highway continued to experience an increase in major truck crash frequency The Hume is the best performing highway with the lowest frequency of major accidents. Source: http://www.fullyloaded.com.au/

With the incidence of heavy vehicle crashes rising in Western Australia and Queensland, some experts have linked this increase to the boom in the mining industry in these two states. There remains a lot of work to be done for all interested parties to reduce the fatalities in heavy vehicle accidents down to zero, which is the only acceptable level. But with 24.5 per cent of accidents due to inappropriate speed for the road and weather conditions this looks like an area that can easily be improved even though it is down from 31.8 per cent in 2009. This is an area where everyone in the supply chain can take some responsibility and help ease pressure on drivers by using realistic deadlines for freight deliveries.