Truck company fined after crash

A trucking company has admitted driving an unsafe truck after a crash in Marlborough.

An employee of Eastmond Transport, based in Canterbury, was driving a heavy truck and trailer on State Highway 1, near Ward, on April 26. The truck’s steering failed suddenly, and the truck crossed the centre line before crashing down a steep bank and into a swamp.

As police inspected the truck, they found the lower steering shaft was disconnected from the input shaft of the steering box. A locking bolt had not been fitted in the right place, allowing the two shafts to separate, a police summary said.

During investigations, police interviewed the company director, Bart Eastmond. Eastmond admitted he installed the steering shaft himself, about two years before the crash. The driver and his passenger were not injured in the crash. Police said they only escaped injury because the trailer unit was not loaded, so the impact was not as bad as it would have been had it been carrying a full load.

They were also lucky there was no traffic on the road, as the highway had been a dead-end since the Kaikoura earthquake in November, the summary said.

The company admitted a charge of operating an unsafe vehicle at the Blenheim District Court on Monday. Nobody appeared in court, but the company sent a letter of explanation to Judge Tony Zohrab.

The letter said the truck had passed four certificates of fitness before the crash.

The maximum penalty was a $2000 fine, but Judge Zohrab gave credit for the company’s clean record.

Eastmond Transport was fined $750.