More than 2,500 heavy vehicles have been inspected by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator in a national safety operation focused on freight movements around Australia’s busiest ports.
Operation Quay was conducted from 21 July to 17 August 2025 at key port locations across the country.
These locations included Port Botany in New South Wales, the Port of Brisbane in Queensland, the Port of Melbourne in Victoria, the Port of Adelaide in South Australia and the Port of Bell Bay in Tasmania.
The project saw NHVR Safety and Compliance Officers (SCOs) work with police to conduct roadside inspections to boost safety and check compliance with load restraint, vehicle roadworthiness and fatigue laws.
Based on the results, the NHVR saw mechanical mass-related non-compliance as emerging concerns.
“Over the course of the month-long operation, our Safety and Compliance Officers (SCOs) inspected 2,566 heavy vehicles, issuing 905 notices as a result,” said NHVR COO, Paul Salvati.
“Unfortunately, this is 905 times where some form of non-compliance was found during an intercept – each representing a preventable issue, and a potential risk to the safety of the driver and the wider community.”
Heavy vehicle non-compliance was seen to be the highest in Victoria, closely followed by SA and NSW.
Hundreds of defect notices were issued for mechanical non-compliance, mainly for faulty lights, reflectors or brakes.
Forty-three of these notices were major breaches. while 662 were minor.
There were 65 mass non-compliance breaches detected during the four weeks, 18 of which were categorised as either severe or substantial violations.
“Non-compliance with mass limits has the potential to result in the damage of critical infrastructure and compromise a vehicle’s braking ability, meaning these breaches could have ended in disaster had our SCOs not intervened,” Salvati said.
“We know heavy vehicles transporting freight in shipping containers are more likely to be involved in safety incidents in comparison to vehicles carrying general freight, and these findings underline the ongoing need for vigilance within the industry to protect all road users.”
Salvati said the NHVR will continue to work alongside police to ensure safety is never compromised.
“Ports are high pressure environments where safety simply cannot take a back seat – the consequences can be severe, and the last thing we want to see are more families, friends and loved ones impacted by road trauma,” he said.
“We worked in close partnership with police during Operation Quay to inform and educate industry on how to meet their safety obligations, but also to enforce the law where required.
“The majority of drivers and operators do the right thing, and we thank them for their commitment to safety, but for those who aren’t, we’ll continue to take action – because no load is worth a life.”
In other news, the 2025 Australian Freight Industry Awards winners have been revealed.
