Diary blitz nabs drivers

The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator’s (NHVR) latest campaign at the Marulan Heavy Vehicle Safety Station south of Sydney last week, proved to be a strong reminder for heavy vehicle drivers to always carry their written work diary (WWD) or electronic work diary (EWD).

The operation came after recent data showed over 120 offences were recorded in the past few months at Marulan, resulted in penalty infringements issued to drivers for not carrying their work diary.

NHVR Director of Operations Central Region Brett Patterson said, the latest blitz at Marulan recorded 18 work diary related offences from over 1000 intercepts.

“It’s great to see the majority of drivers and operators in this latest operation doing the right thing by carrying their work diary, however there is still a small group who were not,” Mr Patterson said.

“We take fatigue related offences seriously and those who were not carrying their work diaries were issued a direction to stop and rest for a period of seven hours.

“As a driver, meeting your safety and fatigue management obligations, in accordance with the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL), is imperative for not only keeping yourself safe, but those you share the road with.”

NHVR says it wants drivers to know that they can carry either a WWD or an approved EWD, or a combination of both, if they are switching from using one format to the other.

“We received a number of enquires around carrying work diaries and we’d like to stress that its important to ensure drivers can produce records for the past 28 days. If you change from using a WWD to an EWD, then you’ll also need to carry your WWD until which time you can show 28 days of records,” said Patterson.

Other breaches recorded at the operation include 137 vehicle defect notices with 48 per cent of defect notices being self-clearing and 26 notices to secure or adjust load.

But the NHVR said it's not finished with just this one blitz on work diaries.

“Following Marulan, we have numerous operations coming up at various locations and this won’t be the only one to tackle the issue of drivers not carrying their work diary. We urge drivers to remain vigilant and ensure they always have their work diaries with them and completed,” said Patterson.

For more information on work diaries including the legal requirements for keeping a work diary and when you must record in a work diary you can use this link.