Waste Management Company Fined $1.1 Million Over Fatal 2014 Adelaide Freeway Crash

The following is an abridgement of an article originally published by NSCA Foundation.

Incident and Sentencing

A national waste management company was fined $1.1 million on 28 May 2026 for two Category 2 offences under the Commonwealth Work Health and Safety Act. The penalty relates to an 18 August 2014 incident where a loaded vacuum truck descended the steep Adelaide Hills section of the South-Eastern Freeway and collided with three cars.

According to Comcare, the crash resulted in the deaths of two motorists. A third motorist sustained a fractured neck and back, while the truck driver suffered a broken neck and a leg amputation.

Investigation Findings

Comcare’s investigation determined the company's driver training program was inadequate. The driver, who was in his first week of employment, had only been trained on flat roads using an automatic transmission. On the day of the incident, he was operating a manual heavy vehicle for the first time and navigating steep descents without supervision.

Comcare CEO Colin Radford stated the lack of supervision created a significant risk.

"The obvious safeguard was for [the company] to have enforced a system of work that ensured the driver was supervised until he was experienced in operating a manual heavy vehicle in these conditions," Radford said.

Legal Proceedings

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions filed charges in 2016, with the case involving multiple legal challenges over more than a decade before reaching sentencing.