A safety alert has gone out requiring urgent checks on the towing connections of almost 500 heavy vehicles, including truck-trailers.
An NZ Transport Agency investigation into a Wellington certifier, Dick Joyce, has identified ‘‘a number’’ of connections not adequately designed for the loads they were certified for, or recertified beyond their viable design life.
The alert covers heavy trucks, logging trailers, buses and motorhomes.
These ‘‘further potential safety issues . . . must be addressed’’, agency operational standards manager Craig Basher said in a statement yesterday afternoon.
‘‘The safety alert we have issued today requires the operators of all vehicles with potentially affected towbars, drawbeams, or drawbars to urgently have them cleaned and inspected for signs of cracks or other failures, carry out daily inspections before use, and discontinue using the vehicles if any cracks or failures are found,’’ he said.
Mr Joyce has been suspended as a specialist certifier since June, though the agency now said it became aware of problems in a May 2017 audit, but an action plan put in place provided an ‘‘unsatisfactory outcome’’.
Agency records showed 483 vehicles were affected. About half of those were in the Wellington and Wairarapa regions.
The agency has stopped short of revoking any of his certifications, but is not ruling that out.
Yesterday’s alert comes at the same time as the agency is trying to get hundreds of heavy vehicles at the top of the South Island back on the road.
Those recertifications are being paid for by the agency, costing millions of dollars.
In Mr Joyce’s case, the agency said it was still considering its payment responsibilities, but added it was not legally liable under consumer law.
An operator’s first recourse was with the supplier.
The agency ‘‘will not be paying for loss of income’’, its safety alert said.
