226Matters court may consider in deciding whether person was impaired by fatigue

226 Matters court may consider in deciding whether person was impaired by fatigue

226 Matters court may consider in deciding whether person was impaired by fatigue

(1) When deciding whether the driver of a fatigue-regulated heavy vehicle was impaired by fatigue, a court may consider any of the following—

(a) any relevant cause of fatigue or sign of fatigue that was evident, and the degree to which it may indicate that the driver was impaired by fatigue;

(b) any behaviour exhibited by the driver that may have resulted from the driver being impaired by fatigue;

Examples for the purposes of paragraph (b)—

• the circumstances of any incident, crash or near miss

• poor driving judgement

• inattentive driving such as drifting into other lanes on a road or not changing gears smoothly

(c) the nature and extent of any physical or mental exertion by the driver;

(d) whether the driver was in breach of the driver’s work and rest hours option.

(2) Subsection (1) does not limit the matters the court may consider when deciding whether a driver was impaired by fatigue.

(3) A court may consider the driver to be impaired by fatigue even if the driver has complied with—

(a) the requirements of this Law, including, for example, the maximum work requirements and minimum rest requirements applying to the driver; or

(b) any other law.