KiwiRail fined $240,500 for “needless accident” on Kaitaki

The dangers of load­ing heavy vehicles onto ves­sels are under the spot­light fol­low­ing the pro­sec­u­tion of KiwiRail and a tow­ing con­tract­or.

Hig­gins Tow­ing Ser­vices (HTS) and KiwiRail were sen­tenced in the Wel­ling­ton Dis­trict Court on 17 Octo­ber 2022 after plead­ing guilty to a range of charges relat­ing to a 2020 injury on-board the inter­is­land ferry the Kaitaki.

The Court awar­ded $58,000 in repar­a­tion to the vic­tim, split between KiwiRail ($34,800) and HTS ($23,200). KiwiRail was fined a final amount of $240,500, while HTS was fined a final amount of $174,000.

The injury occurred when the driver of a heavy vehicle he had just driv­en aboard the ferry, left it to head towards the exit.

At that time, anoth­er truck was being driv­en into the same lane. As the truck moved for­ward and the space avail­able reduced, the man became pinned between two trucks for about a minute.

The man suffered rib frac­tures and remained in hos­pit­al for three nights.

Mari­time New Zea­l­and Invest­ig­a­tions Man­ager Pete Dwen says both organ­isa­tions con­trib­uted to the incid­ent through inad­equate induc­tions and fail­ing to devel­op and imple­ment cor­rect stand­ard oper­at­ing pro­ced­ures.

“This was a need­less acci­dent, and should nev­er have occurred.

“KiwiRail failed to provide a safe work­ing envir­on­ment by not hav­ing appro­pri­ate Stand­ard Oper­at­ing Pro­ced­ures to address the risks of mov­ing trucks, fail­ing to make sure work­ers fol­low exist­ing pro­ced­ures and not prop­erly induct­ing extern­al con­tract­ors like those from HTS,” he says.

KiwiRail’s pro­cesses and HTS’s induc­tion and train­ing videos state HTS employ­ees should always remain under the con­trol of KiwiRail per­son­nel when load­ing trucks on the Inter­is­lander fer­ries.

“This did not occur on this occa­sion, and there were ser­i­ous con­sequences. If there was bet­ter col­lab­or­a­tion between KiwiRail and HTS, in their train­ing and pro­cesses, it is highly likely the incid­ent could have been avoided.

“We know across ports and on ves­sels around New Zea­l­and, com­pan­ies are con­stantly work­ing togeth­er, and this is a big remind­er for them to work col­lab­or­at­ively and to brief extern­al con­tract­ors of safety pro­cesses,” Pete Dwen says.

Mari­time NZ invest­ig­at­ors also found foot­age of per­son­nel and mem­bers of the pub­lic walk­ing around the Kaitaki along­side mov­ing vehicles.

“While we under­stand people need to move from their vehicles to the seat­ing areas/lounges; hav­ing to move past a work­ing area can be very dan­ger­ous,” Pete Dwen says.

Kiwirail and HTS also pleaded guilty to charges of fail­ing to noti­fy Mari­time New Zea­l­and of the incid­ent as soon as pos­sible, and KiwiRail to a fur­ther charge of fail­ing to pre­serve the scene of the incid­ent.