Fonterra’s general manager for transport and logistics Barry McColl has been named ‘road risk manager of the year’ at the Australasian Fleet Safety Awards.
The award recognises his role in maintaining the safety of more than 1,600 drivers in 500 milk tankers travelling more than 90 million km a year.
The co-operative also picked up highly commended in the company driver safety award for the work it has done around reducing driver fatigue.
This result shows the co-operative keeps its promises after Bonnie Olsen, whose partner managers a North Taranaki dairy farm, organised an online petition last year to request that Fonterra force tankers to drive slowly on tanker tracks beside the farmhouse to protect her family and pets.
Stuff reported on May 11, 2015, in an article titled ‘Petition targets speeding Fonterra milk tankers’ that Olsen claimed that her partner has been complaining to Fonterra for over a decade about driver speed on the tanker track to no avail.
According to Stuff, WorkSafe, the Crown entity charged with overseeing safety in the workplace, said Fonterra was legally obliged to adhere to speed limits and rules imposed by owners on farms.
The dairy co-operative responded that it would work with farmers to minimise its impact on farm businesses.
Fonterra has one of the largest transport fleets on the road, and during the season from August to May, its tankers are working 24/7.
Fonterra director for manufacturing in New Zealand Mark Leslie says the award is a great tribute to the outstanding work of McColl and his team.
“Every step of the way safety is front of mind, from the tankers, we purchase, to the training and assessment of our drivers, to the technology that helps us to keep track of how both the vehicle and our drivers are performing,” says Leslie.
“Barry has been instrumental in the implementation of all of this, and it’s great to see recognition of this,” he says.
