The South Australian Road Transport Association is working with the State Government and its agencies to minimise over-regulation and petty enforcement
By Rob McKay | November 5, 2013
The South Australian Road Transport Association (SARTA) is working with the State Government and its agencies to minimise over-regulation and petty enforcement.
After a recent meeting with Transport and Infrastructure Minister Tom Koutsantonis, during which examples of various troubling approaches to the issues were raised, a project involving his department, South Australia Police and SARTA was agreed, SARTA Executive Director Steve Shearer says.
Reports of industry complaints from the Murraylands region about official attitudes towards compliance issues appear to indicate there is work to be done.
Local media reports of a meeting involving Murray Bridge businesses and state Liberal Party deputy leader Vicki Chapman described complaints about prosecutions verging on the petty as raising community ire.
One local operator was said to have received 75 per cent of its defects while its trucks were in South Australia only 25 per cent of the time, the Murray Valley Standard reports.
Others are said to have pointed to conflicting interpretations between enforcement arms.
Shearer says there is nothing new in the reports and the issues are “part of our ongoing dialogue with the SA Government and agencies”.
Part of the initiative is to ensure only those vehicles showing a major breach of Australian Design Rules (ADR) are destined for a full inspection at the Department of Transport and Infrastructure’s main checking facility at Regency Park.
“For example, a missing heat shield on an exhaust is an ADR defect but requires just two eyes and a brain to clear it, so there’s no need to send the rig to the shed for full inspection – local police can easily handle it,” Shearer says.
