From 1 October 2018, “COR” legislation provides for ALL supply chain partners to have responsibility for the road transport of goods in Australia. The chain is defined to include consignors, consignees, freight forwarders, truck operators (all sizes) and their staff including schedulers, drivers and managers. It also includes those people loading containers. The legislation also targets specific areas including load restraint, mass distribution and dimensions, fatigue and speed.
The regulations encompass any vehicle over 4.5 tonnes in most States.
Although SOLAS Regulations are in force worldwide to report the gross weight of containers for shipping, these regulations do not refer to the way in which load is distributed within a shipping container (and therefore where the Centre of Gravity lies) – this has previously been left to individual State road regulations to deal with. However, load distribution and mass, load restraint and Centre of Gravity calculation and reporting now feature as part of the “COR” legislation.
For importers, it is now essential that these requirements are imparted to their suppliers overseas to ensure they are adhered to. Whilst the supplier will not be liable for badly-loaded containers, it will be the responsibility of the importer.
For exporters, it is their own responsibility to comply with these requirements. Hardly a day goes by where a truck accident is not reported in the press, which is both a serious danger to the vehicle driver and other road users, and this legislation seeks to stamp out these occurrences.
Please contact Paccon Logistics in the event of any query.