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.