Fatigue a factor in business vehicle risk management

Many Australian businesses rely on vehicles - in fact, some couldn't survive without them.

When an incident occurs that puts one of those vehicles out of action, this can have consequences for a company's ability to generate income.

Here at Elders Insurance, our business vehicle insurance and farm vehicle covers ensure businesses and farms don't suffer in the event of commercial vehicle accident or theft.

In addition to providing cover for business vehicles, our policy covers emergency travelling expenses, hire costs if a vehicle is stolen, the removal of debris following an accident, towing costs and more.

All businesses engage in risk management strategies to reduce the likelihood of accidents, and the same must apply for the operations of commercial vehicles.

ABC News revealed this month (February 3) that a new report had found a worrying increase in truck crashes in Queensland and Western Australia.

The report's publishers, the National Truck Accident Research Centre (NTARC), studied every heavy vehicle accident in Australia in 2011.

What they found was that while crashes involving trucks were decreasing in NSW, mining states like QLD and WA were seeing a surge in incidents involving heavy vehicles.

One of the major causes of the accidents NTARC investigated was driver fatigue. What may come as surprising, however, is that this didn't necessarily mean that crashes were occurring at the end of long driving shifts.

"Seventy per cent of incidents are happening on outbound journeys and, in cases where they're on an outbound journey, within the first 250 kilometres," said NTARC director of research Owen Driscoll.

It turned out that factors outside of work were "a major issue", according to Mr Driscoll.

NTARC found that drivers returning from weekend breaks were often just as fatigued as others who had just completed a week on the road.

"These guys have got to manage even their time off so when they're back in their truck on Sunday night or the early hours of Monday they're fit and ready to go."