A worker has died and another was seriously injured after a light vehicle collided with a haul truck at the Peak Downs coal mine in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, near Mackay, at approximately 4:38am on Friday 24 July. The ute was travelling on the mine’s haul circuit when it collided with the much larger haul truck. The ute’s passenger, Thiess contractor Andreas “Andrew” Loizou, died at the scene; the driver was transported to hospital for treatment.

The mine is operated by BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA), a 50:50 joint venture between BHP and Mitsubishi Development. In response, BMA suspended operations across all of its central Queensland coal mines for 24 hours as a mark of respect and to allow the incident response to proceed without the pressure of ongoing production. Resources Safety & Health Queensland (RSHQ) dispatched inspectors to the Bowen Basin site to work alongside emergency services and BMA’s own investigators, and has since issued fresh advice to operators on managing interaction risks between light vehicles and heavy mobile plant on active haul roads.

Vehicle interaction between light and heavy machinery remains one of the most persistent, highest-consequence hazard categories in Australian mining, and incidents like this typically trigger sector-wide reviews of traffic management plans. Common controls regulators point to include clearly defined exclusion zones around haul trucks, mandatory two-way radio and proximity detection or collision-avoidance technology, dedicated light-vehicle bypass lanes separate from haul routes, and refresher inductions on right-of-way rules before workers are permitted back on site. For WHS teams in mining and heavy transport, the incident is a timely prompt to re-audit haul road traffic management plans rather than wait for a formal RSHQ bulletin.