Drivers with dangerous, chronic sleep disorders will not face any tougher scrutiny under the latest comprehensive review of federal driving fitness guidelines, despite the ACT Chief Coroner identifying this medical problem as one of the key issues contributing to a Canberra boy's road death almost four years ago.
Four-year-old Blake Corney died in a horrific road crash on the Monaro Highway at Hume in July 2018.
He was in the child's seat in the back of the family Ford Territory which had been stopped at a set of traffic lights on the highway.
The family car was hit from behind by a landscaping tipper truck driven by Akis Livas, who had a slew of prior driving offences before he killed Blake.
The events of that day were so traumatic that the police officers at the scene were reassigned to different roles in the force. Photographs of Blake's body taken by the forensic team and used as evidence were sealed by the courts to prevent further trauma.
Livas, 57 at the time of the collision, had renewed his heavy-vehicle driver's licence in the months prior to the crash. He probably knew he had sleep apnoea for years but still was allowed to drive a seven-tonne truck.
The offender had failed to follow multiple directions to be tested and had failed to notify his employers of his medical condition. His doctor knew the man was unfit to drive, but there was no requirement to alert authorities. After serving time for culpable driving, he was released on parole this month.
This week, Austroads, the national not-for-profit body which provides key advice to transport authorities and is funded by them, published its long-awaited review of the Assessing Fitness to Drive guidelines.
The review looked at multiple medical conditions, including diabetes, neurological and psychiatric disorders and even how prescribed medicinal cannabis could affect a person's fitness to drive a motor vehicle.
However. on the subject of sleep disorders, the only change under the review was "periodic reviews performed by a person's general practitioner may be considered under the commercial standards".
It states a person is not fit to hold an unconditional licence if sleep apnoea syndrome is confirmed; has self-reported episodes; has crashed due to inattention or sleepiness, or is seen by a doctor as a risk. But all of these elements - barring a crash - require either the licence-holder or his/her doctor to admit that a condition exists.
A raft of studies around the world have identified drivers with sleep disorders as presenting a huge risk to road safety. A comprehensive study in Australia 10 years ago by nine doctors, researchers and scientists found that conditions such as obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) increased the crash risk by two to seven-fold.
Even poor sleep, rather than a medical sleep condition, poses a road safety risk. The Sleep Health Foundation said that "broken night-time sleep leads to less alertness, slower reaction times, poorer concentration and more chance of falling asleep at the wheel".
Last month, after the findings into the Blake Corney case were handed down by Chief Coroner Lorraine Walker, ACT Transport Minister Chris Steel pledged that the government would introduce legislation under which medical practitioners would be required to report patients with conditions that could affect their ability to drive.
However, Minister Steel was not specific about the detail contained within the forthcoming legislation, and any wholesale adoption of the newest Austroads guidelines would fail to directly address the sleep disorder issue which was such a major contributor to Livas' culpability behind the wheel of a heavy vehicle at the time of the fatal collision.
Access Canberra was one of the key government stakeholders in the Austroads review.
The ACT government's move on heavy vehicle safety reform and driving fitness - and the key role played by GPs in determining that fitness and notifying authorities - followed on from a campaign earlier this year by Australian Community Media entitled Blake's Legacy which highlighted the many existing issues and shortfalls within Australian heavy transport regulations.
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