Wake Up to New Fatigue Management Technology

Vehicle tracking aids compliance with WHS requirements

Safety risks triggered by driver fatigue are a major concern not only to the drivers themselves – but to the business and to any director.

A vehicle is considered a place of work and employees who are mobile are covered by WHS laws. Under the Land Transport Act, the Chain of Responsibility requirements state that anyone who causes or influences a driver to exceed speed limits or maximum gross weight limits or to work outside of their work time or log book requirements can be fined. Directors can also be fined the same penalty as the company.

Current situation

The NZTA oversees the work time rules to determine how long the driver of a commercial or heavy motor vehicle may work before resting, so it is crucial to restrict work time and reduce the risk of driver fatigue.

In addition, it’s important to have written policies around safe driving to help you meet your obligations as a fleet manager under the WHS requirements and comply with a raft of other regulations.

Logbooks are used to keep track of the hours worked, by providing a written record of work activity and enabling enforcement officers to check compliance with the worktime rules. But paper logbooks are time consuming so the question is how to better manage fatigue and meet the increased responsibilities?

Change on the horizon

On the horizon are new fatigue monitoring and safety technologies that will be useful for fleet managers who oversee vehicle tracking and truck tracking

• Dashboard cameras to monitor driver alertness
• Systems to automatically take over braking or steering if they sense an imminent accident
• Advanced sensors within the vehicle to monitor a driver’s heart rate, eye movements and brain activity to detect issues ranging from drowsiness to a heart attack
• Data is fed back to the whole of picture of the journey including speed, fuel usage, conditions
• Vehicles able to communicate with each other in traffic, weather and road conditions and warn the driver about potential safety hazards
• Fatigue regulations mandate specified rest days, but research shows that crashes are highest on the first day back after a rest – biometric measuring is objective, and would allow managers to intervene in real time if fatigue was detected

The future looks promising for fatigue management technology and rest assured we’ll be here to keep you company, you just stay awake!