Postal operations prove hazardous in Australia, report reveals

New safety data from Australia Post has revealed that posties logged over 81,000 hazards in the part 12 months, equating to more than 200 a day on average.

Hazards tracked and logged on posties’ handheld devices included dogs as the biggest risk, followed by low hanging branches and obstructive trees. However, there were some more unusual hazards including magpie and other bird attaches, insect nests in letterboxes and roped off driveways.

Across the country, New South Wales had the highest number of logged hazards throughout the year at over 20,000, followed by Victoria with nearly 19,000. In the other states and territories, Queensland logged over 16,000 hazards, South Australia logged over 13,000, Western Australia had over 10,000, Tasmania logged 1,300, the Australian Capital Territory logged over 900 and the Northern Territory logged over 500 hazards.

Digital hazard tool

The digital hazard tool was rolled out 12 months ago in a bid to help reduce incidents and injury to posties, allowing them to easily, immediately and digitally log a hazard when they come across it. The next time they, or any other postie, approach a pre-logged location they will receive a warning notification on their device, enabling them to avoid it or take extra care.

Rod Barnes, Australia Post executive general manager network operations, commented, “The nature of the job requires our posties to be out and about every day so anything we can do to help keep our team safe and reduce risk is important. This national hazard database allows us to track hazards consistently and accurately, ultimately reducing the risk for our team members.

“Once a hazard is logged in the system we take the necessary steps to try and resolve it for our team. This might include engaging the local council for issues such as badly cracked pavements or writing to the customer to fix the issue in the case of unrestrained dogs. The safety of our team is our number one priority and if they cannot do their job safely then we may be unable to deliver until the hazard is fixed.”

Reducing accidents

In addition to the hazard tool, Australia Post also uses telematics, including video footage and sensors, across its delivery fleet to help to reduce serious accidents as its delivery team takes to the streets each day. A report last year also revealed that a postie is injured by a third party on the roads at a rate of one a week.