More certifiers suspended in wake of NZTA failure

WELLINGTON: Two more heavy vehicle certifiers have been suspended and the certification of 34 heavy vehicle towing connections revoked as lawyers review compliance cases for road safety issues.

NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) tasked law firm Meredith Connell with assessing 850 cases of compliance after the transport agency failed to properly check the companies that certify vehicles as safe for road use.

Sixtythree of the 152 highpriority cases have been reviewed and the tally of heavy vehicle certifiers suspended has risen to four after two more were pulled this month.

Timaru certifier Adam McFarlane was suspended on Monday, while Aucklandbased Patrick Chu was suspended earlier this month, according to NZTA.

It followed the suspensions of Wellingtonbased certifier Dick Joyce in June and Nelsonbased certifier Peter Wastney last year.

On Tuesday, the agency pulled the certification of 34 heavy vehicle towing connections certi fied by Mr Joyce, leading to four vehicles being taken off the road.

NZTA chief executive Fergus Gammie said strong progress had been made in the bid to strengthen the agency’s regulatory capabilities.

‘‘Much more work is required. ‘‘It’s vitally important we progress this work quickly and comprehensively.’’

NZTA was working hard to give New Zealanders assurances that the vehicles they shared the road with were certified to a high standard and were safe, Mr Gammie said.

‘‘While our focus is on the highpriority cases identified by Meredith Connell, we have also been able to progress work on lower-priority issues.

‘‘That means a quarter of the 850 total files have now been assessed.’’

Mr Gammie said the recruitment of commercial transport officers and certification officers to ‘‘significantly strengthen our enforcement capability longterm’’ was under way.

The agency’s senior manage ment admitted earlier this week files about safety failings had been sitting ‘‘gathering dust’’ for years while lip service was paid to enforcement action against bad operators, both certifiers, including garages that inspect trucks for certificates of fitness, and licence holders, such as truck and bus operators.

RNZ reported an example involved the brakes on public buses and trucks, and one of the 12,000 vehicle inspectors nationwide.

Sources said the machine used by this inspector for testing brakes on heavy vehicles broke down early last year.

The agency’s rules, which inspectors must follow, state they are only allowed to use a secondary form of testing for three days, then they must stop until their main machine is working again.

But this machine was out of action for 18 months, up until quite recently.

Yet the inspector kept issuing certificates of fitness, for the likes of school buses, big trucks and rentals, RNZ reported.

The agency was alerted and it is understood it checked on the inspection site more than a year after the roller brake machine broke, knew it had not been fixed, but still did nothing.

The agency’s own rules state that: ‘‘Heavy vehicle braking has been identified as a significant factor in heavy vehicle accidents.’’

It cites four deaths and almost 50 injuries in such crashes between 1997 and 2002. This led to tougher brake rules in 2007. — NZME/RNZ