Sate Government urges NHVR to speed-up of written-off trucks scheme to thwart 're-birthers'
‘sBy Steve Skinner | May 3, 2013
The NSW Government has asked the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR)
to introduce a scheme “sooner rather than later” to stop written-off trucks being re-registered.
The NHVR is already committed to developing a Written-Off Vehicles Register but the time frame being talked about is three years.
Members of the Australian Heavy Vehicle Repairers Association (AHVRA) recently met with NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay, and expressed deep concerns about trucks being written-off by insurance companies and then re-registered after shoddy repairs from unqualified “backyarders” and criminal “re-birthers”.
Minister Gay’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Andrew Huckel, tells ATN: “We immediately recognised that this is an issue that needs to be confronted.
“We’ve done a lot of work here in NSW in terms of light vehicles, but now it’s obviously rapidly emerging as an issue with heavy vehicles,” Huckel says.
“It looks like some of these people have flipped from the light vehicle industry into the heavy vehicle industry.
“Some of the practices that are happening are pretty horrific, and we said ‘OK, we’ll put in a call to the NHVR’.
“I spoke with the NHVR saying we believe this is an issue which is potentially something that needs to go on the forward works program, but not everything is going to happen overnight, so we’ll continue to pursue that with the NHVR.”
In response to ATN’s comment that the NHVR doesn’t seem to have the staff to achieve a write-off scheme in under three years, Huckel says: “The states will help, it will be a team effort with the heavy vehicle regulator.”
He also says it’s no use NSW going it alone in the meantime: “If we have written off heavy vehicle legislation just in NSW, it will create perverse outcomes in the other states, because the people who tend to do this type of stuff tend to move around.”
According to AHVRA Chairman Richard Nathan, a Sydney smash repairer with half a century’s experience: “Rego inspections and roadside blitzes are only looking for signs of wear and tear. No-one is looking for post-accident damage.
“Every heavy vehicle that has been hit has to have certain components tested if deemed necessary by the repairer and the insurance assessor. But if the vehicle’s written off, none of these are done and it will come back onto the road with no control over that.
“How many people have got to be killed before anyone takes any notice? The problem is how do you prove they were killed by a bad repair from a previous accident? We can show what’s leading to crashes, and it’s just unbelievable. It’s an avalanche.”
For more see the feature on truck smash repairs in the next issue of ATN magazine
