Categorisation of defects

Visual walk around inspection

Questions and answers

1. What is the categorisation of defects all about and why are you doing it?
This initiative is a system for categorising heavy vehicle defects based on their risk to the safe operation of the vehicle. We’re doing it to help provide consistent, transparent and improved guidelines for the detection of heavy vehicle defects during audits and roadside/weigh station inspections, which the industry has been asking for.

2. What will be the same, what will be different?
This is NOT a new process, but rather a set of new guidelines to help achieve a more consistent and transparent way to inspect heavy vehicles for safety defects.

What will change is that, when either the Police or Land Transport NZ use these guidelines to check your vehicle, defects will be identified based on a categorised safety assessment which will be consistent across the country.

The consequences of operating a vehicle with defects have not changed but the guidelines assist the Police and Land Transport NZ to consistently categorise a range of defects according to safety risk.

Importantly, these are guidelines only and enforcement officers retain their discretion to deal with inspections, and the consequences of finding defects, according to the merits of each particular case.

3. How are defects categorised?
Defects are categorised in the guidelines as dangerous, serious, or moderate, depending on their safety risk. The consequences vary according to the risk to safety that any particular defect may cause. You can see a full list of what defects are in each category, and what the consequences may be on the Land Transport NZ website at the HMV defect descriptions webpage and the SPSV defect descriptions pages.

The consequences range from an instruction to repair the vehicle, being parked up, and/or being issued with a non-operation order (green, red sticker).

4. What will heavy vehicle operators and drivers have to do differently?
Nothing. But because the categorisation of defects is now consistent across the country, we encourage drivers and/or operators to do the walk-around inspection check yourself as part of your usual inspection process before your vehicle leaves for its shift. And fix defects BEFORE Police or Land Transport NZ checks.

5. Will it cost us more?
If you’re non-compliant it will, because you’re more likely to get caught.

But it could even cost you less. Now that you know the guidelines that we’ll be applying to checks and audits of your vehicles, you can do the checks yourself and avoid the costs of fines as well as the down time that comes with being ordered off the road.

6. What’s in it for us?
The system will be fairer and more transparent because we’ve now created a set of guidelines for the categorisation of defects that can be applied consistently across the country.

As mentioned above, you could save money by doing the checks yourself and fixing faults BEFORE going on the road and having the Police or Land Transport NZ identify faults.

Also, improved safety in the heavy vehicle industry does good things for the industry’s reputation, and subsequently for business.

7. What do I do if I find a fault?
Fix it! Knowing that there’s a fault is not a good enough excuse – you must fix it, because we’re checking for defects that can be critical to the safety of your drivers and other road users.

8. How long will the walk-around take?
The same time as it does at the moment, ranging from five to fifteen minutes.

9. Do I still need to get a Certificate of Fitness (CoF)?
Yes, the categorisation of defects walk-around checks will only be carried out by the Police and Land Transport NZ during audits and roadside/weigh station inspections. The current CoF inspection process hasn’t changed.

Last updated: 11 May 2005