Vehicle owners flouting towbar ban are breaking the law

Monday, 4 February 2019

Some Auckland motorhome owners caught up in a towbar recall are going as far afield as Tauranga to get them rechecked because of a shortage of qualified vehicle engineers.

Vehicle owners who use towbars without having a safety check ordered by the Transport Agency are risking prosecution.

Three towbar manufacturers have written to agency chair Michael Stiassny demanding his organisation meet the cost of recertifying more than 1400 towbars signed off by suspended heavy vehicle engineer Patrick Chu.

The five page letter said many customers relied on towbars for their livelihoods, and the long waits for recertification meant some were facing the difficult choice of breaking the law or losing business.

Stuff talked to a solo tradesman who said he had phoned 13 certifiers on a list provided by the agency, but so far none had been able to help, and he was using his towbar illegally rather than see his business go under.

The Transport Agency has defended its decision not to pay what could potentially amount to more than $1m for the recertification of more than 1400 towbars, despite footing the bill during an earlier recall.

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He was among owners of trades vehicles, trucks, caravans and motorhomes told just before Christmas that they could not use their towbars until they were recertified, a process that can cost anything from several hundred dollars to more than $1000.

'If this issue is such a safety risk, I should have been contacted immediately, but instead they have allowed me to drive around with this 'safety risk' since October [when Chu was suspended]. '

Wellington lawyer Steve Haszard, who is overseeing the Transport Agency's enforcement work, said the towbar recall was done with good reason, and anyone who ignored it was acting unlawfully.

'It would be crazy for them to do that. Why would they compromise their safety or the safety of other road users by doing that?… We hope common sense will prevail.'

Haszard said they would have liked to launch the recall earlier, but specialist engineering advice was not finalised until December 20.

'New Zealand's best truck engineers told us they could not be sure about the safety of these towbars, so we were left in a rather invidious position of having to make that call on the 21st [of December].

'We just could not bear the thought of, over the Christmas period, one of those tow bars failing and there being a serious accident or a death.'

During an earlier towbar recall for suspended heavy vehicle engineer Peter Wastney, the agency met recertification and repair costs for affected transport companies, and 25,000 light vehicle owners issued with potentially dodgy warrants of fitness have also been offered free rechecks.

Towbar manufacturers Aro Bros, Aker Bilt and Counties Commercial said in their letter to Stiassny that it was patently unfair to expect them or their customers to pick up the cost of recertification when the agency had failed in its statutory duty to properly monitor the standard of Chu's work.

Haszard is adamant the Wastney case was considered a 'one off' situation which did not set a precedent and now aggrieved parties should claim against Chu's public liability insurance.

'The remedy for them is to take the certifier to task, he's the person who has done the wrong certification, not the NZTA.'

Aro Bros co-owner Shirley Aro said she understood the excess on Chu's insurance policy meant this avenue for recouping costs was not an option.

Just Trucks director Michael Childs said his clients were recently told that their exemption from having a certified towbar would run out on November 30 this year, and if the towbar was not legal by then, the entire vehicle would lose its certificate of fitness, effectively taking it off the road.

Operations manager for Auckland motorhome and caravan sales company Joyco Blair Johnson said he was aware of about a dozen owners affected by the towbar ban. 'But that number is going to grow.'

He said the shortage of engineers in Auckland had pushed up recertification prices and one customer was quoted $1200 which seemed 'quite exorbitant,' and some motorhome owners were going to Hamilton and Tauranga to get it done.

'[The transport agency] has taken a very heavy handed approach and banned all his [Chu's] work without viewing it and they're asking our customers to pay the bill again, which is not right … they should have kept a closer eye on him,' said Johnson.