Chain of Responsibility (CoR) Explained: Who Is Responsible Under the HVNL?

In this article

1. What Does Chain of Responsibility Mean?
2. Who Has Obligations in the Supply Chain?
3. What Is the Primary Duty?
4. What Does CoR Cover? The Five Key Risk Areas
5. Can More Than One Party Be Responsible?
6. What Position Holders Have Responsibilities?
7. Where Do Truck Drivers Fit In?
8. Other CoR Duties
9. CoR Penalties in 2026–27
10. Recent CoR Prosecutions
11. What the NHVR Expects You to Do
12. Frequently Asked Questions
13. Speak With Eric Before You Respond

Under the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL), heavy vehicle safety is not just the driver’s job. Every business that controls or influences a heavy vehicle’s transport activities has a legal duty to make those activities safe. This is called the chain of responsibility (CoR).

This guide explains the chain of responsibility: who is in the chain, what the primary duty means, what CoR covers and the penalties for getting it wrong.

What Does Chain of Responsibility Mean?

Chain of responsibility is the idea that safety depends on decisions made well before a driver gets behind the wheel. Schedules, contracts, loading practices and maintenance all affect what happens on the road.

The HVNL turns that idea into law. It identifies the businesses and people in the supply chain, and gives each of them a duty to ensure safety. Since 1 October 2018, a party can be liable even if no road offence, such as speeding or overloading, has been committed.

Who Has Obligations in the Supply Chain?

The HVNL names 10 functions. Anyone who performs one of them, whether a person or a company, is a party in the chain of responsibility:

1. Employer: employs a heavy vehicle driver.
2. Prime contractor: engages a self-employed driver under a contract for services.
3. Operator: directs the control and use of a heavy vehicle.
4. Scheduler: schedules the transport of goods or passengers, or a driver’s work and rest hours.
5. Consignor: coordinates and sends goods for transport.
6. Consignee: receives goods delivered by a heavy vehicle.
7. Packer: packs or assembles goods for transport.
8. Loading manager: manages premises where five or more heavy vehicles are loaded or unloaded each day.
9. Loader: loads a heavy vehicle.
10. Unloader: unloads a heavy vehicle.

One business can hold several roles. In a simple delivery, the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) points out that the business sending the goods may be the consignor, scheduler, packer, loader and loading manager all at once.

When there is a breach, the NHVR says it will usually investigate the business, because the business controls how the risks are managed.

What Is the Primary Duty?

Under section 26C of the HVNL, each party must ensure the safety of its transport activities, so far as is reasonably practicable. That means eliminating public risks, or minimising them where they cannot be eliminated.

The primary duty also prohibits directly or indirectly causing or encouraging a driver, or anyone else, to speed or break the HVNL.

“Reasonably practicable” means doing what should be done to ensure safety, weighing up all the relevant factors. The NHVR says it works much like the duty of care under work health and safety law. The difference is that it reaches beyond your premises, to every part of the heavy vehicle journey you can control or influence.

Unlike a mass or height limit, the primary duty does not tell you exactly what to do. It sets the outcome, and each business decides how to achieve it.

What Does CoR Cover? The Five Key Risk Areas

The NHVR says the HVNL has detailed rules for these key risk areas, often grouped as five:

• Speed: schedules, rosters and contracts must not require or encourage speeding, and speed limiters must be fitted and working where required.
• Fatigue: drivers must never be required to drive while fatigued, and work and rest hours must be achievable.
• Mass and dimension: loads must not exceed mass or dimension limits, and parties must give accurate information about the mass of loads.
• Loading: loads must be restrained to the loading performance standards.
• Vehicle standards: vehicles must meet the vehicle standards and be properly maintained.

The primary duty goes wider than these five areas. It covers all transport activities, including vehicle purchasing and maintenance, recruitment, induction and training, site layout, board decisions, policies and procedures, and contracts with other parties.

Read more about the risk areas in our guides to overloading fines, fatigue breaches and load restraint offences.

Can More Than One Party Be Responsible?

Yes. Section 26A of the HVNL says safety is the shared responsibility of each party in the chain. It is not about finding the one party to blame. Every party has the same duty.

The HVNL also sets out these principles:

• More than one person can have the primary duty for the same activity at the same time.
• Having several parties does not reduce anyone’s duty. Each must meet the full standard.
• The duty cannot be transferred or delegated to someone else, including by contract.
• What is reasonably practicable can differ between parties, depending on their activities, the risk and their ability to control it.

It is not enough to assume the other parties are doing their part. The NHVR expects each party to understand how risks are being managed at every stage of the journey, and to share known hazards with the others.

Being in the chain does not make you automatically liable for someone else’s mistake. A breach happens when a party fails to do what was reasonably practicable within its own control or influence.

What Position Holders Have Responsibilities?

An executive of a business in the chain has a separate, personal duty to exercise due diligence. That duty makes sure the business complies with its primary duty. Executives include directors, partners, executive officers, managers and anyone else who takes part in managing the business.

The duty is personal. It cannot be handed to a compliance manager or consultant, and an executive who fails to meet it can be prosecuted personally.

Where Do Truck Drivers Fit In?

A driver is not usually a party in the chain unless they are an owner-driver or operator, or perform another CoR function such as loading. But drivers still have their own duties under the HVNL, including the duty not to drive while fatigued or unfit to drive.

CoR also protects drivers. No business in the chain may cause or encourage a driver to speed, drive while fatigued or break the HVNL in any other way.

Other CoR Duties

Beside the primary duty, the HVNL has other duties that apply across the chain. They include:

• Prohibited requests and contracts: you must not ask, direct or contract for something that would cause a driver or another party to break the HVNL.
• False or misleading transport documents: documents about the goods, such as their mass, must be accurate.
• Container weight declarations: shipping container weights must be declared accurately.

CoR Penalties in 2026–27

These are the maximum penalties from 1 August 2026 to 30 June 2027. All are court-only.

The NHVR can also use education, improvement notices, prohibition notices, enforceable undertakings and court orders.

Recent CoR Prosecutions

NSW transport company, its managing director and a scheduler (NSW Supreme Court, 2022). The business had no adequate systems to manage driver fatigue, speed, and work and rest hours. After an NHVR sentence appeal, the company was fined $180,000 for a Category 2 offence. The director and the scheduler were each fined $15,000 for Category 3 offences.

Company with poor mass and maintenance systems. The NHVR reports a prosecution where a company failed, over a long period, to have effective systems to stop its vehicles exceeding mass limits and to maintain them. This was a primary duty breach, and the fine exceeded $100,000.

Sydney earthmoving company (2026). A driver with serious long-term health problems was involved in a fatal crash. The company had inadequate fitness-for-duty policies and had backdated its safety manuals. It was fined $1.2 million plus $75,000 costs for a Category 2 offence.

What the NHVR Expects You to Do

The NHVR’s guidance on complying with the primary duty includes making sure that:

• rosters and schedules do not require drivers to exceed driving hours or speed limits
• drivers are never required to drive while fatigued
• loading and unloading time slots are realistic
• parties give accurate information about the mass of loads
• vehicles are not loaded beyond mass or dimension limits, and contracts do not encourage it
• loads are restrained to the loading performance standards
• vehicles comply with vehicle standards and are maintained
• staff are trained to understand the risks.

A documented safety management system helps show what your business did and why. A pattern of on-road breaches, such as repeated overloading, can be used as evidence that the primary duty was not met.

Related guides: read more about how operators can prevent overloading, the reasonable excuse defence and what to expect in an HVNL prosecution.

Need advice on your matter? Speak with a heavy vehicle lawyer in Sydney before you respond to the NHVR or the police.

If you are a director or senior manager, read Chain of Responsibility for directors and executives to understand your personal due diligence duty.

Frequently Asked Questions

Speak With Eric Before You Respond

Chain of responsibility investigations often start with a roadside breach, a notice to produce or a report to the NHVR. What your business says and hands over in the first response can shape the whole case. Read our guide to what to do if you are contacted by the NHVR.

Eric Navea is a former Senior Prosecutor at the NHVR. He understands how primary duty investigations are run and how prosecution cases are built.

As a chain of responsibility lawyer, Eric advises transport businesses, directors and managers on their obligations, and represents them in court.

Received a notice, a request for information or a call from the NHVR? Speak with Eric before you respond.

Speak With Eric Before You Respond