RMS believes more operations aimed at trucks using the Newell Highway are needed to weed out rogues
September 30, 2013
The New South Wales Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) has flagged more heavy vehicle compliance operations along the Newell Highway in the wake of a three-day campaign targeting trucks.
The RMS and NSW Police ran Operation Uplink between September 24 and 26 focusing on speeding and defective trucks on the Sturt Highway at Moree and the Newell Highway at Narrandera.
Officers stopped 300 trucks in total and issued 64 defect notices and 54 traffic infringements.
Three trucks were found to have insecure loads while a further 24 were found to have faulty or non-compliant engine control modules (ECM) for limiting vehicle speeds to 100km/h.
RMS Director of Customer and Compliance Peter Wells says the department is seeing common problems with an increasing level of non-compliance around fatigue, maintenance of vehicles and load restraint.
“Previous intelligence gained through Operations South and Candid identified similar levels of non-compliance and demonstrates the need for continued operations along the length of the Newell Highway,” he says.
“We support heavy vehicle operators who do the right thing and target heavy vehicle operators and their supply chain partners who do wrong thing.
They can be assured Roads and Maritime and NSW Police will continue to deploy the joint heavy vehicle taskforce to combat these practices in a committed and ongoing way.”
Police conducted 108 random breath tests and issued eight court attendance notices for offences such as low-range drink driving, serious fatigue-related breaches, and dangerous and insecure loads.
Police also found a number of workbook breaches, defective tyres and five trucks speeding through an RMS work site.
Assistant Commissioner John Hartley says he is concerned about the number of faulty ECMs police detected.
“Those drivers or operators who have their trucks set at more than 100km/h need to get the message the joint heavy vehicle taskforce will continue to drive speeding out of the industry,” he says.
“Truck drivers who think they can use the Newell or Sturt highways, or any NSW roads, as speed corridors need to think again.”
