Australia’s livestock transporting industry has announced plans to launch a new national 24 hour emergency hotline for drivers involved in vehicle accidents.

The planned launch of the “LivestockASSIST” hotline in July was one of several new safety and welfare initiatives for domestic livestock transport discussed by the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association (ALTRA) National Transport Insurance (NTI) and Animal Health Australia (AHA) at a meeting in Canberra this week.

Developed by ALTRA and NTI, LivestockASSIST will be used for vehicle incidents such as breakdowns, collisions and non-vehicle incidents, such as stock injuries, abandoned vehicles, climatic conditions, disease outbreaks, and/or driver sicknesses/injuries.

A merger of the existing TruckCare and TruckSafe initiatives, LivestockASSIST will be available to all species, drivers and industries; and will also be available to non-members of ALTRA.

Upon ringing the hotline after an incident, the caller will be directed to the closest stock person who can then provide advice and have the necessary contacts to deal with the situation.

AHA’s Project Officer, Livestock Welfare & Endemic Disease, Kelly Wall, said LivestockASSIST was a great industry initiative to promote and improve animal welfare.

Represents of the three organisations also discussed the draft National Guidelines for the Safe Design of Loading Ramps and Forcing Yards at this week’s meeting.

LivestockASSIST and the National Loading Ramps and Forcing Ramps guidelines will be officially launched at ALTRA’s National Conference in Bunbury WA next month on July 3-4.

For more information contact ALTRA on 02 6247 5434, email [email protected] or visit the website http://alrta.org.au.