National Transport Commission completes Load Restraint Guide review and update

The National Transport Commission has completed its review and update of the Load Restraint Guide. The updated guide was launched in January 2018. Transport operators should familiarise themselves with the updated guide and review their loading procedures to ensure they comply with it.

The Load Restraint Guide provides guidance to transport operators and consignors on principles for the safe loading, carrying and unloading of loads. The second edition of the guide was published in 2004. Since that time, restraint practices have developed and improved. In November 2014, the Transport and Infrastructure Council directed the National Transport Commission to update the guide. The updated guide was approved by the Transport and Infrastructure Council in November 2017.

The updated guide can be accessed here: Load Restraint Guide 2018.

The guide does not set out an exhaustive set of procedures because ‘it is impossible to be prescriptive for the many different types, weights and shapes of loads that can be transported’. However, it is important that transport operators observe the performance standards set out in the guide because of its evidentiary value in prosecutions for load restraint offences: the Heavy Vehicle National Law provides that evidence of non-compliance with a performance standard set out in the guide is evidence that the load was not restrained in compliance with the loading requirement applying to the vehicle.