Authorities knew for years that some trucks had a handbrake so sensitive it could be dislodged simply by shutting the cab door - in fact, since just after a man was crushed to death in 2010.
Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
In an Official Information Act (OIA) response, police say the Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) was not prepared to bring in a ban because it could impact truck operators .
The family of the roadworker killed in Ngauranga Gorge in March 2019, 25-year-old father-of-two Joji Bilo, accuse the agency of carelessness and callousness .
Police and NZTA already knew by 2013 of at least nine crashes in the lower South Island involving the Sanwa Seiki type of handbrake, including one fatal where a maths teacher was crushed on a hill in Dunedin in 2010.
There was a non-injury accident involving the brakes in Auckland, in mid-2020.