- Calls to ban imports of vehicles with cardan shaft parking brakes
- A coroner this week found the braking system had inherent dangers
- Road Carriers Association issues safety alert to members
- Father of man who died in accident involving brakes worries safety messages aren't getting through
Transport industry figures back a call to ban imports of vehicles with an unsafe braking system linked to six deaths.
Six men - Alan Nichol, Brian Edwards, Mark Lee, Phillip Loving, Graeme Rabbits, and Allan Ranapia - have lost their lives in incidents involving cardan shaft parking brakes (CSBs) since 2010.
A coroner investigating Graeme Rabbits' death has declared the brakes inherently unsafe.
"In my opinion, given there are a range of factors that can cause a CSB to fail without warning, and that some of those factors will not be obvious even to an educated or knowledgeable operator/driver, relying on a CSB as the sole parkbrake mechanism in a vehicle/machine is inherently dangerous, because even a well-maintained CSB can fail without warning," coroner Erin Woolley said this week.
Graeme Rabbits' father, Selwyn, has waited eight years for answers about what happened to his son and, grateful for the coroner's ruling, now wants to see a ban on more vehicles with the brakes coming into New Zealand. Some major players in the transport industry back him.
Heavy vehicle compliance expert Steve Bullot says the system has a fatal design flaw. The senior consultant with Tohora Enterprises has more than 50 years of industry experience and told RNZ's Checkpoint there were numerous problems with cardan shaft parkbrakes.
"The NZ Transport Agency introduced a number of mitigations to address these issues - the RBM [roller brake machine] test at COF [Certificate of Fitness], enhanced inspection, serious education programmes, improved maintenance...
"These actions by the agency have proved effective, but there's still a fatal design flaw that none of those mitigations can address.
"A vehicle that has a parkbrake that you have to use [wheel] chocks for - that tells me that you haven't actually got a parkbrake. The solution to that is to ban the importation of vehicles fitted with cardan shaft parkbrakes.
"It's the only way to prevent further harm."
A coroner says Graeme Rabbits had no way of knowing a cardan shaft parking brake would fail without warning. Photo: Supplied
Cardan shaft parkbrakes are a common and cheaper form of braking system in up to 70,000 vehicles in New Zealand. They differ from other brakes, as they have a single mechanism at the gearbox, rather than at the wheels.
In her ruling, Coroner Woolley said the brakes were dangerous, because they could still fail, when a driver thought they'd done everything right to apply them.
The system's design could lead to rollaways, if vehicles were parked on slopes or slippery ground.
The coroner's findings have led the National Road Carriers Association to issue a new alert to its members.
"It re-emphasises the dangers associated with cardan shaft brakes," said association policy and advocacy general manger James Smith. "It also clearly spells out the need to use wheel chocks to prevent rollaway on any slope, so we've made that a little bit crisper."
He said its 1500 members would receive the alert, which also warned against trying to jump back into a vehicle that's rolled away, as happened with the death of Allan Ranapia in 2020.
Smith said the NZ Transport Agency was reasonably good at getting alerts out and giving advice, but getting information to everyone who needed it was challenging.
Transport Agency surveys show this too - there's been a rise in awareness of the braking system - from about 34 percent in 2020 to 61 percent this year - but that still leaves almost 40 percent of drivers unaware.
Selwyn Rabbits says he will continue to campaign against the braking system that cost son Graeme his life. Photo: Nick Monro
A roadside operation found 80 percent of vehicles had a warning label about the brakes, as recommended in a 2022 safety alert.
However, Smith was concerned authorities like the Transport Agency and WorkSafe weren't working more closely together, and that must improve, given vehicles with cardan shaft parking brakes would be around for years to come.
"Especially if you look at some of the uses of these vehicles - you're looking at horse floats, caravans, that sort of thing - they they tend to linger in the fleet longer than what a commercial vehicle would do."
This worries Selwyn Rabbits, who is concerned the safety messages aren't getting through. He'll continue to push transport officials to do more.
The Transport Agency disagrees with Coroner Woolley's findings that cardan shaft parking brakes are inherently unsafe.
It told Checkpoint that education about their limitations, up-to-date maintenance and raising awareness about correct use can reduce safety risks.
The agency is reviewing the coroner's recommendations to see if further measures are needed.
Transport Minister Chris Bishop has asked the agency for a briefing on the matter, which his office describes as ''a technical and complicated issue".
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