Law-breaking truckies get little industry sympathy

Twenty trucking companies threatened with being shut down for deliberately breaking the rules aren’t getting much sympathy.

The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has given notice that it intends revoking the transport service licences of 20 trucking operators and 25 drivers as it toughens up on those caught breaching regulations.

Trucking Association chief executive David Boyce said the feeling was that those not doing a proper job ‘‘deserved to be run out of the industry’’.

National Carriers’ Association chief executive David Aitken said his members wanted to see more policing of the industry.

Thursday’s announcement by the NZTA also included the immediate suspension of four truck drivers and 13 vehicle certifiers who can no longer do warrant of fitness and heavy vehicle inspections sparking the retesting of 10,000 vehicles.

Those moves reflected the influence of law firm Meredith Connell which was appointed two months ago to sort out deficiencies in the agency’s enforcement work.

To have 45 firms and drivers facing loss of transport licences is unusual when compared with the NZTA’s history of enforcement action.

Over the three years to the end of June, it revoked 66 transport service licences and 24 were of the type required to run truck services.

Commercial and general traffic infringements were the main reasons for cancelling licences, but sexual, dishonesty, and violence offences also featured.

Road Transport Forum chief executive Ken Shirley said the NZTA change in attitude was long overdue and there was no sympathy for those persistently breaking rules about overloading, vehicle maintenance and driving hours.

‘‘We can’t condone that because the compliant end up subsidising the non-compliant who cut corners in contracts on the basis of noncompliance.’’ Police are investigating alleged driver licensing fraud at the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), which recently sacked a contractor after concerns were raised.

The agency confirmed it was a suspected case of internal fraud relating to a ‘‘limited’’ number of driver licences and vehicle records.

‘‘In late November our internal processes identified serious concerns about the behaviour and actions of a contractor, whose employment was terminated within 24 hours of these concerns being raised,’’ the agency said in a written statement.

NZTA has engaged external assistance for a forensic investigation to help determine the extent of the suspected fraud, but declined to comment further while it worked with police to establish the facts.

However, Stuff understands the investigation centres on

First Union transport and logistics division secretary Jared Abbott said for too long the agency had taken a soft line with trucking companies when the union reported breaches of work-time rules.

‘‘They love going out and pinging individual drivers, but they don’t like going after companies ... We’d love it to change.’’

Abbott said most companies had GPS fitted in their vehicles so were aware if drivers were exceeding unauthorised access to the driver licence register, which is used to approve licences for issuing to applicants.

In February, NZTA announced a raft of changes it had implemented in the wake of reports that driving licences were being obtained by bribes or corruption.

The changes included closer monitoring of all driver licensing transactions at a national level to identify trends and potential anomalies.

Hundreds of drivers had licences cancelled or were required to resit tests and a trial of two men accused of taking bribes in exchange for licences is under way in the Manukau District Court.

The latest revelations come at a bad time for the agency, which is already the subject of two reviews relating to its failure to enforce transport safety regulations.

–Stuff

their working-hours limit, but they turned a blind eye.

‘‘We’ve had a number of drivers come to us and say they were threatened with dismissal if they didn’t go over the legal limit.’’

He said some drivers were travelling up to 100 kilometres in a company car to a rural area before getting behind the wheel of a truck.

‘‘Work is saying: ‘Just don’t log the trip to and from,’ when it’s really all part of it.’’