Haul Road Design and Road Safety

Incidents occur on mine sites at locations where the road is deficient in design. The investigation of these incidents identifies improvements at the location of the incident but usually the issues go deeper. The haul road design and maintenance guidelines need to reflect what a safe road should look like; too often they are generic and do not give sufficient information to build a safe road. The public road network is designed to Australian Standards; there is no mine haul road standard. Haul road design and maintenance of haul roads are critical functions of the mine and the haul roads should be designed and maintained to the safest possible standard. The incidence of truck rollover or vehicle- to-vehicle collisions or near misses is ever present on a mine site due to the mix of vehicles-haul trucks, road trains and watering trucks together with cranes, excavators and contractor vehicles all operating on the mine haul roads.