The Australian Government has implemented a road safety mandate affecting heavy vehicles cruising our roads.
New heavy vehicles are required to be fitted with advanced emergency braking (AEB) and electronic stability control (ESC).
These new standards will apply to all categories of heavy vehicles, from buses and coaches through to heavy goods trucks.
As of November 2023, all new models of heavy vehicles must have AEB and ESC systems installed and from November 2024 all existing models already in circulation will require the same update.
Assistant minister to the deputy prime minister, Kevin hogan believe these new requirements will reflect international standards and ensure the safest vehicles are made available to Australian operators at the lowest cost.
“Vehicle technology has an important role to play in saving lives and livelihoods on our roads, which is why we have introduced new standards requiring AEB and ESC systems to be installed in all new heavy vehicles,” Hogan said.
“Mandating this technology for heavy vehicles is expected to save around 100 lives and avoid more than 2300 serious injuries over 40 years.”
AEB systems are designed to detect forward collisions, warn the driver and automatically apply the breaks should they not respond.
ESC systems can detect the risk of a rollover and decelerate the vehicle to prevent an incident from occurring while also monitoring a drift in the driver’s intended course, correcting the issue to place the vehicle back on track.
“ESC systems for heavy vehicles are estimated to reduce loss of control and rollover crashes by up to 30%, with AEB systems expected to reduce crashes involving a heavy vehicle impacting the rear of another vehicle by up to 57%,” Hogan says
“AEB technology will be particularly impactful for our nation’s articulated vehicles, which see around 70% of fatalities and just under half of the serious injuries from crashes involving heavy vehicles striking the rear of another vehicle.”