Government of Western Australia | A trucking company has been fined $550,000 (and ordered to pay $8,000 in costs) for failing to properly secure a load on one of their trucks that was later involved in a fatal collision.
R.G.R. Road Haulage Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that the health and safety of other persons was not put at risk by their work and was fined in the Perth Magistrates Court.
Three mining and construction services companies were also fined a total of $770,000 over the same incident in October 2025.
Those three companies provide services to the civil mining and construction industry, and all played a role in the construction of earthworks at a mine in the Pilbara.
The earthworks required the use of large amounts of water, and the mine operator requested one company to provide a water pump known as a “MegaFill pump”, which was procured by the hire company.
The MegaFill pump is a mobile water pump with two booms, an intake boom and a discharge boom. The booms extend out for use and are folded away for storage and secured for transport.
When folded, the booms can unfold and rotate away from the pump if not properly secured, so the intake boom is secured for transport by way of a chain attached to the boom, a travel mount strap placed over the boom and a travel mount bolt attaching the boom to the pump frame. A precautionary strap is applied over the whole machine.
When this work was completed, a haulage company was engaged to transport the pump back to Perth, where it was demobilised.
The workers involved placed a rachet strap over the intake boom for transport, but they did not attach the chain or the travel bolt, creating a risk that the boom could rotate during transport.
The pump was later loaded onto a semi-trailer, with the travel strap in place. However, the truck driver failed to place a strap over the entire pump or check to see if the travel mount bolt or holding chain had been applied to the intake boom.
When the truck was travelling towards Perth on Great Northern Highway, the ratchet strap securing the intake boom failed and the boom became unrestrained.
At around 9.27pm on 25 July 2022, the intake boom of the pump struck and killed the driver of a truck travelling in the opposite direction just north of Meekatharra.
WorkSafe did not claim that R.G.R. caused the death, however the company did play a part in the incident by failing to ensure the proper restraining of the boom of the water pump that rotated to the other side of the highway during transport.
R.G.R. and its director were also fined a total of $400,000 in March 2025 over another incident, pleading guilty to failing to maintain a safe workplace and, by that failure, causing serious harm to a worker.
