Making Safety Our Primary Duty: How do we Fit in the Chain of Responsibility

You are a party in the CoR when you perform any of the following 10 functions:

1. Employ a heavy vehicle driver (employer)
2. Engage someone to drive a heavy vehicle under a contract for services (prime contractor)
3. Direct the control and use of a heavy vehicle (operator)
4. Schedule the transport of goods and passengers in a heavy vehicle, or schedule a driver’s work and rest hours (scheduler)
5. Consign goods for transport by a heavy vehicle (consignor)
6. Receive goods delivered by a heavy vehicle (consignee)
7. Pack or assemble goods for transport in a heavy vehicle (packer)
8. Manage premises where five or more heavy vehicles are loaded or unloaded each day (loading manager)
9. Load a heavy vehicle (loader)
10. Unload a heavy vehicle (unloader)

All Parties in the CoR must maintain the Primary Duty

The primary duty is the obligation to ensure so far as is reasonably practicable the safety of your transport activities: to do everything you can to make your transport work actions safe.

You must: identify the risks involved in your transport activities, assess those risks, eliminate those risks, or if they can’t be completely eliminated, minimise them as much as possible.

You must not: take any actions that could influence drivers and others to speed or breach the HVNL, this could include: direct requests or terms in a contract financial penalties or rewards preferential treatment any other words or actions that might cause or encourage another CoR party, or a driver, to bend the rules.

What does ‘Safety’ mean ?

Definition: For the primary duty, ‘safety’ means eliminating ‘public risk’ in relation to the:

• Safety of drivers and passengers in heavy vehicles
• Safety of other road users and people near roads
• Protection of property including vehicles and loads
• Protection of road infrastructure
• Prevention of harm to the environment (or spreading diseases borne by livestock).

The HVNL has detailed requirements about managing driver fatigue, complying with mass and dimension limits, safely restraining loads and maintaining safe vehicles. These are some of the most critical safety issues in heavy vehicle transport.