Commercial vehicle driver fatigue management training
11/04/2019
WorkSafe Western Australia has recently launched an online training package focussed on fatigue management of commercial drivers.
The training package, Staying Alert At the Wheel, is designed to help commercial vehicle drivers meet relevant standard and requirments. The package assits employees and employers to understand the impact of fatigue and works with managers and superviors to adopt strategies to prevent fatigue
There are online self assessment questions and successful completion of the review questions leads to an online statement of completion being issued.
What is the responsible person (managers and supervisors) required to do?
The responsible person at the workplace has a duty to comply with the following requirements:
- to ensure that commercial vehicles are operated in accordance with the commercial vehicle;
- operating standard;
- to ensure that every commercial vehicle driver is certified by a medical practitioner as fit to drive the commercial vehicle;
- to ensure that there is a fatigue management plan that covers every commercial vehicle driver;
- to ensure that records are kept in accordance with the regulations for driving commercial vehicles; and
- The responsible person also has general duties. These general duties include ensuring that employees and contractors who drive commercial vehicles have adequate information, instruction, training and supervision, in order that they can work in a safe manner.
On the back of recent incidents where a failure to manage fatigue unfortunately played a part, this initiative is one way of creating an increased dialogue on an issue that can effect a wide range of businesses throughout Australia.