1 Apr 2021

Truck brake linked to fatal crashes causing headache for authorities

From Morning Report, 7:28 am on 1 April 2021

Authorities are struggling with what to do about a second lot of truck brakes involved in serious accidents causing death.

In recent days transport agency Waka Kotahi has effectively issued a ban - from September - on Sanwa Seiki handbrakes implicated in two deaths.

This after years of only giving out safety alerts.

But the agency has not banned a much more common type of heavy vehicle handbrake, called cardan shaft though these failed on a truck in 2017 and a mini-crane in 2018, in both cases crushing men to death.

Reporter Phil Pennington has the story.