Road safety is an important consideration for commercial vehicle operators. This page highlights essential information including how the Assessing Fitness to Drive standards are applied for licensing of heavy vehicles, how the standards apply under accreditation schemes such as the National Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme, and the forms you can use to manage fitness to drive assessments.
This page will be updated as new information and resources become available.
What is your role as an employer?
Employers operating commercial vehicles share with their drives an obligation to protect the safety of other road users, including ensuring drivers are appropriately licensed and that they are fit to drive (fit for duty).
How is licensing linked to fitness to drive of commercial vehicle drivers
Assessing Fitness to Drive defines two sets of medical standards for driver licensing:
- Private vehicle driver standards, which apply to drivers of motorcycle, cars and light rigid vehicles
- Commercial vehicle driver standards, which apply to drivers of Medium Rigid (MR), Heavy Rigid (HR), Heavy Combination (HC) and Multiple Combination (MC) vehicles.
A person who declares a health condition to the Driver Licensing Authority or whose condition is reported to the Driver Licensing Authority, will be assessed against the relevant set of standards to determine their licence status. They may be required to have ongoing periodic assessments to monitor their health condition and their ongoing fitness to drive.
Licensees of certain types of vehicle are also required to have periodic fitness to drive assessments, even if they don’t have a health condition that may affect driving. These requirements are in place to support early identification and management of health conditions. The requirements vary between states and territories but generally apply to higher risk vehicles and may apply to drivers over a particular age. For example, in NSW, drivers licensed to drive Multiple Combination vehicles are required to have a medical assessment on initial application and then at age 21 and every 10 years up to age 40, then every 5 years until age 60, then every 2 years until age 70; and then annually thereafter. The Driver Licensing Authority in each state and territory manages these requirements. Details of health assessments required for different license classes in the states and territories are described in Appendix 1 of Assessing Fitness to Drive.
Are there national industry requirements for heavy vehicle drivers and fitness to drive?
While the licensing system does help support fitness to drive for heavy vehicle drivers, the need for a national industry-wide approach to heavy vehicle safety, including fitness to drive, has resulted in the establishment of accreditation schemes such as the National Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme (NHVAS).
The Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) commenced on 10 February 2014 and provides as framework for the scheme, which is administered nationally by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR).
The voluntary scheme operates in all states accept Western Australia. In that state there is a mandatory state based scheme for restricted access vehicles – the Western Australia Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme (WAHVS).
The NHVAS also operates alongside industry schemes including TruckSafe – developed and managed by the Australian Trucking Association.
The NHVAS, WAHVAS and TruckSafe, all include requirements or standards associated with driver health, including fitness to drive assessments, generally in association with fatigue management. Standards require that drivers undergo regular health assessments to make sure they meet the medical criteria for commercial vehicle drivers contained in Assessing Fitness to Drive, with a particular focus on aspects such as sleep disorders, substance abuse etc.
For more information see:
- National Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme – Fatigue Management Accreditation Guide
- Western Australian Heavy Vehicle Accreditation – Fatigue Management Module Standards
- TruckSafe Accreditation Standards
What forms can be used for assessments conducted under the accreditation schemes?
Forms have been developed to support the conduct of health assessments for fitness for duty for commercial vehicle drivers. They are intended to facilitate assessments required for schemes such as TruckSafe and NHVAS Fatigue Management Accreditation, as distinct from driver licensing.