Opinion: OH&S and the longhaul driver

The OH&S/WHS world can seem far removed from the road-going reality for Australia's longhaul drivers, writes Bruce Honeywill

Are we creating workplaces for extremely stupid people? London mayor Boris Johnson thinks so. In a piece in British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, he suggested, "Health and safety concerns are reducing life to mindless mayhem." Television presenter and host of the Dirty Jobs TV series, Mike Rowe, describes a workplace where a worker abdicates responsibility for his or her own safety as a dangerous place.

Obviously a global phenomenon, the empire of OH&S (Occupational Health & Safety) and WHS (Work Health and Safety) hits home hard in Australia's road transport industry – in the workplace and in the yards where trucks are loaded and unloaded. Many of us watched the empire grow from a kernel of need into a world-consuming monster. In every walk of life we are confronted by the foot soldiers of the OH&S/WHS empire.

Don't get me wrong. There was a need. Too many people were being injured. The unions, bless 'em, probably nurtured the kernel of the empire without a clue of the beanstalk they were growing. Through the '80s and '90s the empire grew and conquered all. OH&S became an industry in its own right, feeding off other industries.

We have seen an outsourcing of responsibility of government departments, agencies, corporations and companies. We live in a culture of box-ticking. As Jeff Corbett put in the Newcastle Herald, "Since that brief period when legislated safety and common sense were not mutually exclusive, the OH&S juggernaut has ploughed through silliness and stupidity and is bogged now in farce."

I'm sure there are many OH&S/WHS people with compassion and good hearts. But there are just as many without. People who use prescription to bully employees into compliance. 'You WILL do this,' and 'you WILL NOT do that'. 'YOU are responsible for the roadworthiness of equipment taken out on the road'.

There seems to have developed a tendency of some of these 'guardians' to push responsibility for everything down the career pecking order to lie heavily on the shoulders of the driver. This attitude flies in the face of all this 'Chain of Responsibility' stuff we've heard so much of lately.

These attitudes divide the road transport workplace. They don't wash well with the longhaul driver, a particularly independent species in his or her own right and a role that requires a skill set a long way removed from that of a factory job or a short/medium-haul driver. And yet the OH&S dude sees the work environment as a one-size-fits-all affair. Risk assessment and reporting processes have been developed to cover minor incidents and events.

If these people really want to assess risk and improve workplace safety, why not look at the scenario of two multiple-combination vehicles approaching each other in the deep night, combined weight of more than 200 tonnes, potential impact speed a little short of 200km/h. Two drivers in the last couple of hours of their legal driving periods. The vehicles approach on a narrow creek causeway without barriers or shoulders. The safety margin is a few centimetres.

Where does that sit on a risk assessment grid? Off the page. There is not a square red enough on a risk assessment grid to cover the level of danger.

Well many of us face that situation two or three times most nights. It is 'out there' in the night where the danger lies. Forget the ordering around, the uniforms, the stupid instructions on how to do things we've been doing for decades. If you want safety, give support to the longhaul drivers, the elite of the industry, where it is needed. Out in the danger zones. 'What's that?', I hear you say, 'You didn't learn about that in safety school?'

Most OH&S/WHS people come from an acronym-rich environment. Perhaps they need another: RSE.

>> Respect: The drivers know a hundred-fold more about the job they do than most desk jockeys.

>> Support: It’s a hard job and dangerous. For better safety outcomes, support the drivers in every way possible.

>> Empower: Empower the drivers to do their jobs better. Introduce mentor programs so the young can learn from the experienced.

If the OH&S/WHS staff were to do this, they would probably find the ‘smaller’ safety issues simply look after themselves.

Opinion: OH&amp;S and the longhaul driver

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Opinion: OH&S and the longhaul driver