Truck safety checks proving overwhelming despite laws being passed to stop deadly incidents

Tough new laws to punish bad drivers and take dangerous trucks off the road if they fail safety inspections have yet to be enacted — a year after state Parliament passed them.

Tom Spiess, 56, and Jacqui Byrne, 41, died on August 18, 2014, when a truck crashed into cars at the bottom of the South Eastern Freeway.

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Tough new laws to punish bad drivers and take dangerous trucks off the road if they fail safety inspections have yet to be enacted — a year after state Parliament passed them.

Inquiries by The Advertiser have revealed the requirement to carry out 62,000 truck safety checks annually, and find 100 new specialist inspectors, has overwhelmed the SA vehicle-inspection industry.

Despite the law being passed in December 2017, it has never been enacted, and a worldwide search has begun for a consortium to cope with the workload.

The failure means the scheme may not begin until the end of 2019, almost five years after first recommended by the Coroner’s office, which in January 2015 was scathing of poor safety on the South Eastern Freeway descent into Adelaide.

Also on the backburner is a package of new penalties of up to two years in jail for truck drivers and owners who repeatedly flout road rules.

The failure has emerged less than a month after prosecutors dropped two counts of causing death by dangerous driving — based on existing laws — over a 2014 truck crash on the freeway that killed two people. The severity of that crash, caused by truck brake failure, was also one of the motivations for the crackdown.

Truck driver Darren Hicks outside the District Court.

Caitlin Byrne, the daughter of one of the victims, Jacqui Byrne, 41, was on Tuesday critical of the failed prosecution of driver Darren Hicks, 32.

“Someone needs to take responsibility for the two beautiful lives that were taken, and for those who loved them whose lives will never be the same without them,” Caitlin Byrne told The Advertiser.

“A lot of lives were completely ruined that day and someone needs to be responsible for it.”

Jacqui Byrne and Tom Spiess, 56, died on August 18 2014, when the brakes failed on a Cleanaway sewage truck being driven by Mr Hicks, and it slammed into stationary cars at 151km/h at the bottom of the freeway descent.

Changes to the law, passed in November 2017, were first recommended by the Coroner in 2015 after an inquest into another deadly 2014 crash.

Ms Byrne also criticised the delay in implementing the December 2017 law as another wait for grieving families.

“People shouldn’t have to die for those sort of laws to be put in,’’ she said. About 640,000 trucks descend on the freeway into Adelaide every year and crashes have commonly been caused by brake failure since the freeway was upgraded and straightened in the late 1990s.

Opposition transport spokesman Tom Koutsantonis alerted The Advertiser to the failure to implement the scheme on Tuesday, after the trucking industry was issued with an update advising of the delayed start date, possibly 2019. The Transport Department update stated: “The Vehicle Inspection Scheme procurement process is still under way and will be moving into negotiations in the New Year to appoint a System Manager to deliver the statewide scheme requirements.’’

Mr Koutsantonis said: “It is unacceptable that these laws have not commenced. It is putting thousands of motorists who use South Eastern Freeway every day at risk.

“Transport Minister Stephan Knoll must tell South Australians why there has been a delay and when these laws will finally commence.”

But one senior South Australian transport industry source, who could not be named because his organisation was part of a likely failed local bid for the tender, said the existing vehicle checking system could not meet the planned demand.

He said the State Government might now have to use a national consortium that has carried out similar schemes interstate and in New Zealand.

“There is just not the capacity in SA to handle the workload, mainly the massive backlog which will be created when the scheme first starts,’’ he said.

“Companies are already building new inspection bays in anticipation of the work, to fit large numbers of trucks for safety checks.’’

Mr Knoll said: “The inspection scheme will be enacted once the engagement and implementation elements are known to allow for the readiness of industry to deliver the scheme. Changes of this magnitude take time to implement.’’

He said police, federal and state authorities continued to direct considerable resources to truck safety, including random safety inspections.

He revealed that three sets of regulations — formal State Government policies which outline how laws are to be implemented — will be brought before Parliament early this year.