Ninety-three per cent compliance in NHVR crackdown

A national operation that involved the inspection more than 3500 heavy vehicles, including oversize overmass and Performance Based Standards combinations, has found that 93 per cent were compliant with their permit conditions.

NHVR Chief Operations Officer Paul Salvati said the third Operation Kingsize was conducted over nine days in September.

“This year, officers inspected 3533 heavy vehicles which showed that 93.1 per cent were compliant with their permit or notice conditions,” Mr Salvati said.

“Importantly, we saw over the course of the operation, the compliance rate increased as word spread about the nature of the operation.

“This year’s operation was also designed to better educate drivers on compliance with 25.9 per cent of intercepts resulting in a warning and information for operators.”

Authorised Officers from 10 agencies including police, state transport agencies and the NHVR were deployed to 142 locations across Australia, a significant increase from the 28 locations utilised in 2018.

Mr Salvati said the operation was intelligence-led, with real-time data managed through the NHVR Command Centre, ensuring information between NHVR, the heavy vehicle data network and on-road officers including police was managed effectively.

“The average intercept duration for compliant vehicles was 14.1 minutes, compared to the average intercept duration of 30.7 minutes for non-compliant vehicles,” Mr Salvati said.

Overall there were 872 offences recorded across a range of categories, which equates to a compliance rate of 82.3 per cent of the vehicles intercepted – an increase from 80.7 per cent last year.

The most common offence was failure to carry a required permit or notice, required under the Heavy Vehicle National Law. Other offences included breaches of mechanical safety (31.8 per cent), mass (12.8 per cent), dimension (5.2 per cent), and loading (4.8 per cent).