Runaway truck death preventable, coroner rules
The death of a man run down when the park brake failed on a truck in Ngauranga Gorge was preventable, a coroner has said.
Coroner Mary-Anne Borrowdale released her findings on Wednesday into the death of 25-year-old Joji (George) Bilo who was killed on March 11, 2019 after another work truck’s brake slipped and the truck ran downhill.
The findings come after a Wellington District Court judge had fined the company $13,500.
The judge found there had been failures by Fulton Hogan over the use of a park brake by a contractor that was known to fail and to provide health and safety directions to those contractors working on the site.
The coroner said Bilo lived in Naenae with his wife, Luisa, and their young children. He had been employed by Fulton Hogan as a general labourer since August 2018.
Fulton Hogan had been contracted by the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi to remove existing road seal on State Highway 1, Ngauranga Gorge and to lay new seal on a 350m stretch of the roadway.
A number of contractors were used on the site including Wellington Contracting Ltd, who themselves subcontracted to Shuttle Express Ltd for additional vehicles and drivers.
One was David Jenkins who was to drive a truck to cart the millings away from the site and bring new seal mix to the site.
He was driving a truck that had a park brake manufactured by Sanwa Seiki Ltd which had a known issue, with two other deaths attributed to the mechanism.
Safety alerts had been put out at least twice and police knew of other crashes. Waka Kotahi banned it last year.
Jenkins parked, only to have the truck immediately begin rolling downhill. He fell and was injured himself.
The truck rolled driverless downhill without headlamps or any beacons on, rapidly gaining speed to around 45-50kph, when it struck Bilo without warning.
He was dragged about 20m by the truck, which then rolled over him and struck the central median barrier, finally coming to a stop around 750m from where it had been parked.
The coroner said Bilo’s death was preventable.
“The failure of the Sanwa Seiki park brake mechanism caused his death; but for the brake failure, the truck would not have run away.”
She said there were, however, other omissions that contributed to the tragedy – most obviously the way the truck had been parked.
“When parking on a downhill slope of any kind, drivers should always turn their wheels to the kerb and, if the vehicle has a manual transmission, place the vehicle in reverse gear (in addition to putting the handbrake on).”