BY COBEY BARTELS, Fleet HV News
The recently launched Construction Logistics and Community Safety – Australia (CLOCS-A) initiative has just digitised its certification process and is gearing up to transform the booming construction sector…for the better.
The CLOCS-A Standard might be a relatively new initiative Down Under, but in the UK the equivalent CLOCS program is in its 11th year and has significantly improved construction industry safety outcomes.
The original program was born when Transport for London set out to reduce the disproportionately high number of accidents involving construction vehicles. At the time, data showed a staggering 20 people were killed or injured every day in collisions.
“In the UK there was like a 47 percent reduction in fatal and serious crashes between heavy vehicle drivers and vulnerable road users,” said Director of the National Road Safety Partnership Program (NRSPP), Jerome Carslake when speaking with Fleet Auto News a few years back.
Since then, Mr Carslake has been instrumental in getting a local version of the initiative off the ground in Australia, helping develop the CLOCS-A Standard with funding from various state governments and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR).
The program aims to reduce road trauma associated with transport logistics, through the use of a best-practice guide for everything that goes in and out of a construction site. This involves bringing developers, contractors and transport operators together to improve safety outcomes.
“This is very much a systems approach, it’s not just trying to put everything on the truck driver,” Mr Carslake said.