Billy Clemens: Transporting NZ Policy Head on the trucking industry wanting NZTA to have the power to impound dangerous vehicles

The trucking industry wants NZTA to have the power to impound dangerous vehicles, after an Auckland operator was jailed for manslaughter.

Ashik Ali kept his truck on the road despite it being banned, and its failed brakes caused it to roll away and fatally hit a roadworker last year.

Transporting NZ Policy Head, Billy Clemens told Ryan Bridge the assessment for entering the industry needs to be more rigorous, with the current process limited to a theory test.

He says they want people to demonstrate their experience and the necessary skills beforehand.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The trucking industry wants tougher rules for unsafe vehicles. An
Auckland driver was jailed for manslaughter after his banned truck
with failed the brakes killed the road worker. Billy Clemens
is with Transporting end Z joins me this morning, get.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
A Billy, I killed O Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
So this was a pretty devastating case, wasn't it. So
guy basically has a dodgy truck and then breaks fail
and it rolls and hits a road worker.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah. Absolutely, Look, I'd just like to start by offering
my condolences to the final of Jonathan Walters, who was
the road worker a year who was killed. This was
a case. This death resulted after a truck's brakes failed.
The operator and driver of this truck, mister Ali, knew
that the vehicle had braking issues and the vehicle that

(00:47):
actually been subject to to non operation orders prior to
this event. Despite this, mister Ali had actually gone ahead
and obtained new registration plates for this vehicle that he
knew to be on safe and went and made modifications
so it could complete further work. And the judge described
this as grossly, grossly reckless and it's had really tragic

(01:10):
consequences for mister Walters and his family.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
What do you want change? What could fix that?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah? I think there's three really important things to be
helpful here. So firstly would be actually be a more
rigorous process to who's permitted to operate a road freight
transport businesses in the first place. So in order to
operate a good transport business you need to hold a
TSL license. And we were actually transporting New Zealand or

(01:37):
at Select Committee last month making the point that there's
the barriers to entry to the industry are probably too low.
There needs to be a more rigorous assessment before a
person's in a situation where they have the responsibility of
running a company. Secondly, once people are operating, we need
to make sure that NZTA and police have the necessary

(01:58):
compliance tools that they need to get unsafe drivers and
vehicles off the road. And this can include looking at
the ability for ms TA and police to impound heavy
vehicles in more situations and more easily, but also everything
from cracking down on impeered driving, drug driving, just things

(02:19):
that will provide the public confidence that the road forreight
industries operating safely. We know the vast majority of operators do.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
When you finally oh sorry, yeah, when you say it's
too easy to be able to get a license and
to operate, how easy is it?

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, the Transport service license can be applied for through MDTA.
It's not a particularly rigorous assessment. What we'd like to
do is that before you before you're issued that license,
there should be a demonstration that you have the necessary skills,
you have experience within operating within the industry and the

(02:57):
particular sector of road freight that you're operating in.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
So, Billy, do you just do some kind of online
fill in some online form get your license? Do you
have to sit with an instructor and do a test?

Speaker 2 (03:07):
No, No, it's a theory. Yeah, it's a it's a
it's a theory test that gets passed rather than a
practical examination of of your skills or business assessment.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Is that for a big big trucks too.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, that's right. So what we think that that's correct.
So I think what needs to happen is that there
needs to be an assessment that actually looks at what's
the scale of the business that you intend to operate,
how many vehicles exactly the size and scale of the
vehicles that you're looking at operating. And also tsl's at
the moment don't have a fixed state of expiry, so

(03:42):
m z TA has the ability to withdraw a TSL
license if it hasn't been used or activated within the
last two years, but that doesn't happen sort of automatically
as of right. So we know that Ministry of Transports
had a thorough review of the TSL program. Is sort
of work it wants to do on its books. Since

(04:02):
I understand from more twenty twenty one so years ago,
we think it would be a great action for MOT
and MZTA to take to get this thorough review underway
and am sure that we've got the right people operating
road freight businesses.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Sounds like it needs to happen, but it sounds a
little bit like a weekbooks.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
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