Questions and answers

Page added 14 June 2021

1: The Application information document records at A6 that '[f]or the avoidance of doubt, heavy vehicle certification cannot be undertaken at third-party sites which undertake heavy vehicle repairs'. Can you please clarify what is meant by this?

The sentence quoted above from A6 of the Application Information document was an inadvertently inaccurate.

The Director of Land Transport will permit applicants to undertake heavy vehicle entry certification and inspection at third party sites that undertake heavy vehicle repairs for vehicles undergoing entry certification inspection. However, applicants will not be permitted to undertake heavy vehicle repairs at their own sites for entry certification and inspection.

This approach by the Director of Land Transport is based on the requirements for applications to be appointed as heavy vehicle entry certification inspecting organisations in the Land Transport Rule (Vehicle Standards Compliance) 2002. Under clause 2.5(2), the Director of Land Transport may give such weight as they consider appropriate to 'the applicant’s degree of financial or professional interest in importing or selling vehicles or vehicle parts, or in modifying or repairing vehicles; and the extent to which that interest, if any, is counterbalanced by other relevant factors'. The Waka Kotahi Operational Policy Managing integrity of used vehicle certification inspection and inspection organisations – Operational Policy (2014), under r 10.1.3.2.2 and 10.2.4, also provides that Inspecting Organisations applying to carry out heavy vehicle entry certification functions will be 'required to demonstrate … that a high degree of functional separation will exist between entry certification activities and any other vehicle inspection, repair, and maintenance activities'.

On the basis of this Rule and Policy, the Director of Land Transport ensures there is sufficient functional separation between inspection and repair activities by prohibiting inspecting organisations undertaking heavy vehicle entry certification from also undertaking repairs of vehicles undergoing entry certification at their own sites. Third party sites are permitted, however, to undertake repairs of heavy vehicles undergoing entry certification, whether the Inspecting Organisation undertakes entry certification of the heavy vehicles at that third party site or elsewhere.