A garbage truck company has been spared some convictions for workplace failures that resulted in a fatal crash on the South East South Australian motorway.
Key points:
- A truck operated by Cleanaway Operations was involved in a fatal accident in 2014
- Cleanaway Operations was convicted of eight counts of breach of its duty of safety and health
- The Supreme Court today dismissed the company’s appeal but overturned six of the convictions
In August 2014, Darren Hicks was driving a truck for Cleanaway Operations when he suffered a “catastrophic brake failure” and reached speeds of up to 150 km / h.
Thomas Spiess, 57, and Jacqueline Byrne, 41, were killed when the truck crashed into their cars at the bottom of the freeway.
Hicks and another motorcyclist were seriously injured.
The charges initially filed against Mr. Hicks were dropped in 2018.
But his employer was found guilty last year in the Adelaide Magistrates’ Court of eight counts of breach of his duty of safety and health because he had not properly trained and supervised the driver and had not maintained a safe work system. .
Hicks, now a Paralympic gold medalist, had obtained a heavy vehicle license two months before the crash and had worked for the company for just days.
Eight years after the fatal crash, Cleanaway Operations appealed its conviction to the Supreme Court on several grounds, arguing that Magistrate Simon Smart had erred in finding sufficient evidence to show that it was reasonably feasible to assess the jurisdiction of the Mr. Hicks to clear the freeway.
Chief Justice Chris Kourakis dismissed the company’s appeal, saying Cleanaway had failed in its duties.
“The risks of a collision between a heavy vehicle such as an empty truck and other road users due to a failure to control its speed on the steep descent down the highway to a busy suburban intersection were obvious and unusual, ”he said.
“The driver ‘s competence to make the right gear changes was a major safeguard against this risk.
South Australian Chief Justice Chris Kourakis dismissed Cleanway Operations’ appeal, but the court will overturn six of the eight convictions related to the crash. (ABC News: Simon Royal)
“There was no practical reason not to assess Mr. Hicks’ competence in selecting gears for a freeway descent before he was ordered to drive the vacuum truck down the freeway.”
In his written judgment, Chief Justice Kourakis said that while Cleanaway Operations had a system for assessing drivers, it was not used regularly.
“It was not implemented effectively in a timely manner before Mr Hicks got into a heavy vehicle with a manual gearbox on a downhill that was particularly high risk and required a well-trained or experienced driver,” he said. .
“Brake failure was both a circumstance against which competition in the use of gears was a safeguard and a problem which was exacerbated by Mr Hicks’ inability to use the gears effectively.
“It is a well-known fact that the causes of industrial and other accidents are often multifactorial; it is also a precept for occupational safety, which is why multiple safeguards are needed.”
But court president Kourakis dismissed six of the company’s eight convictions, saying each measure the company had not implemented to eliminate or minimize risk should not be a separate crime.
“Driving the vacuum truck on the highway is a misconduct,” Chief Justice Kourakis said.
“The risk could have been minimized by any, or any combination, of the reasonably practicable measures alleged: providing a supervisor, not allowing Mr. Hicks to drive, properly training Mr. Hicks in manual gearboxes, or properly training Mr. Hicks to get off the freeway.
“However … there was a single breach of duty by employees and a single breach of duty with other people.”
The company’s convictions for six of the charges will now be overturned.
The court has yet to impose a penalty for clean-up operations.