For Questions Regarding WOFs/CERTs/NUMBER PLATEs

[VintageSpecial]

23 minutes ago, Nominal said:

You could try asking NZTA / OIA?

It could be a way to use the rules they have (safety systems) to back-in improving pedestrian safety without having to make a lot of new rules.

I was considering that but that page does sort of explain the thinking of this particular change. You'd just get that back to an OIA. 

They are basically saying vehicles are built and tested to a standard and you're adding something that now changes that so it needs to be inspected to see what the impact of that is then that makes sense. NZTA check vehicles are to the standard, LVVTA are there to check vehicles that fall outside that (and in turn have their own standards). That makes sense. I am not picking on NZTA here, this is just an interesting example of change.

I am more interested in how they decided that this was a thing to change now rather than some other thing or problem.

Where I work, I wonder the same thing - what drives the work we do and the pace we have to do it. It's quite hard to find out! The larger an organisation the harder it is to find out. The people at the top have a vision but no idea of the practicalities, the people at the bottom know the practicalities of their small area but don't know how it all needs to piece together and so you have to have layers and layers in the middle trying to co-ordinate/deliver it all. And in really big orgs you have whole departments whose job it is to communicate what's happening in the middle bits so people understand why they are there and what they are doing. Especially across orgs, say between NZTA and LVVTA.

Politicians of all flavours often campaign on removing those middle bits (and the communicators) as wastage.

[Early jap nuter]

My wife’s best mate has somthing to do with this she.Insurance company’s are having a shit how the bullbars and such are taking utes off the road in a small crash.they are questioning how are they not under cert when they change the strength of the Ute.they don’t want to insure any modification.

I know  if you  do the bolts up on some certain brand bars to tight you crush the front crumple zone on a ranger chassis. Some Utes you can see the front of the chassis sag after fitting

[ajg193]

19 hours ago, cletus said:

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicles/warrants-and-certificates/vehicle-equipment/bullbars/#:~:text=Bullbars can cause airbags to,activated can be expensive%2C too

That page reads like it was written by an activist 

[KKtrips]

I need to do a Facebook post on LVVTA page about he Bullbars thing but I put off doing it on a Friday because I wasn't mentally prepared for the pushback over the weekend.  

[cletus]

6 hours ago, VintageSpecial said:

I'd like to know what drives (no pun intended!) these sorts of changes at NZTA? They seem a bit vague: 

"There's some evidence..."

"Bullbars can cause airbags..."

Would be interesting to see some of that evidence.

It seems odd they focus on the drivers safety when you'd think the risk from bull bars is far greater to a pedestrian or cyclist and that adding bars to the front of a vehicle will affect any of the Vulnerable Road User safety features a vehicle has. Australia has done some research on this but it's tricky to get solid conclusions since the data from real crashes lacks certain information and the sample sizes are quite small.

But generally it seems accepted that bull bars increase the risk to pedestrians. But it's hard to find much about how they affect they affect the internal safety systems, like air bags, of vehicles fitted with them. I think partly since some of those systems are quite new so again there isn't enough real world data and that studies on that specifically haven't been done.

 

 

I can see why nzta have done what they have done, even if I don't like it or totally agree with it.

It's not hard to see that adding steel bars and 5mm thick steel plates to the front of a vehicle, makes it less safe for pedestrians and cyclists. Given their recent focus on lowering speed limits on "the road to zero" this is not surprising. 

It also makes sense that any modifications that are made to a vehicle should be checked to make sure it hasn't affected the vehicle in a negative way

Up until now, for cert, this has meant making sure the bumper doesn't have sharp edges and it doesn't affect the crumple zone. Recently there was emphasis put on making sure bars didn't lean forward causing a pedestrian trap.

On NA class vehicles, there was nothing about making sure air bag operation was not affected. This has been the part that has now changed, so it's either got to be factory, or have a bar that's been tested to still comply with a frontal impact standard (ie ARB or similar bar with an ADR sticker on it.)

Lvvta or certifiers do not have the means to figure out if a bar complies with that, so we can't say it's OK, the responsibility goes back to the manufacturer to prove their product complies 

 

A fictitious but potentially feasible story-

guy with a fully sick lifted hilux wants a custom bar, but when he slides off the road and into a tree and the airbag doesn't go off at the right time and he dies, his mum gets upset and starts blaming everyone but the son for his truck having this bar. Then the process of "who's fault is it?" starts.

The guy who made it "it got a wof. Not my fault"

Wof guy. "it was certed. Not my fault"

The certifier. "I followed the requirements at the time. Not my fault"

Lvvta. "These were the rules we had at the time which are approved by nzta. Not our fault" 

Nzta " well we had better make sure these bars don't affect how the air bags deploy, we can't test every single ute and bar combo and it's not our job anyway, must have proof of testing now"

 

[Toddy415]

25 minutes ago, cletus said:

I can see why nzta have done what they have done, even if I don't like it or totally agree with it.

It's not hard to see that adding steel bars and 5mm thick steel plates to the front of a vehicle, makes it less safe for pedestrians and cyclists. Given their recent focus on lowering speed limits on "the road to zero" this is not surprising. 

It also makes sense that any modifications that are made to a vehicle should be checked to make sure it hasn't affected the vehicle in a negative way

Up until now, for cert, this has meant making sure the bumper doesn't have sharp edges and it doesn't affect the crumple zone. Recently there was emphasis put on making sure bars didn't lean forward causing a pedestrian trap.

On NA class vehicles, there was nothing about making sure air bag operation was not affected. This has been the part that has now changed, so it's either got to be factory, or have a bar that's been tested to still comply with a frontal impact standard (ie ARB or similar bar with an ADR sticker on it.)

Lvvta or certifiers do not have the means to figure out if a bar complies with that, so we can't say it's OK, the responsibility goes back to the manufacturer to prove their product complies 

 

A fictitious but potentially feasible story-

guy with a fully sick lifted hilux wants a custom bar, but when he slides off the road and into a tree and the airbag doesn't go off at the right time and he dies, his mum gets upset and starts blaming everyone but the son for his truck having this bar. Then the process of "who's fault is it?" starts.

The guy who made it "it got a wof. Not my fault"

Wof guy. "it was certed. Not my fault"

The certifier. "I followed the requirements at the time. Not my fault"

Lvvta. "These were the rules we had at the time which are approved by nzta. Not our fault" 

Nzta " well we had better make sure these bars don't affect how the air bags deploy, we can't test every single ute and bar combo and it's not our job anyway, must have proof of testing now"

 

But then could you just get around all this by certing an aftermarket steering wheel without an airbag? If you can cert removing the drivers airbag can you not cert removing any other ones?

[RXFORD]

Nzta's argument of airbag safety kind of goes out the window a bit when theres still a loophole of a ~9+ year period where vehicles newer than March '99 but 14 years or more older can have steering wheel airbag deleted...

With or without a bullbar drivers probably going to have a bad day. 

[Bling]

I'm sure they will happily close that loophole.

Lets be honest, cars have to meet certain criteria to be allowed on the road. Don't meet those rules and they can't be compiled to be on the road. Whacking some railway track on the front of your rig throws any of that compliance out the window. Surprised it's taken them this long to crack down on it.

[Nominal]

At least the steering wheel airbag delete is only bad for the driver not every other road user.

[cletus]

59 minutes ago, Toddy415 said:

But then could you just get around all this by certing an aftermarket steering wheel without an airbag? If you can cert removing the drivers airbag can you not cert removing any other ones?

I don't know,

 

last time I asked lvvta about this  was for a car that had airbags removed and a cut front bumper beam for fmic 

But it still had to comply with frontal impact rules ie non cut bar 

 

 

 

[cletus]

10 minutes ago, Bling said:

I'm sure they will happily close that loophole.

 

I think if the solution to not being able to cert a bull bar is to remove the air bags, then nzta would likely get rid of the air bag removal thing , kind of surprised it's still there tbh  

They have already said late model stuff can't have ABS removed , if it's got stability control etc  

[KKtrips]

In my opinion, vehicles once they reach a certain age should be able to have all the driver assist, ABS, airbags etc removed, just because getting parts for them if they go bung will be impossible.

But it probably needs to be longer than 14 years, cos my Prius is nearly 14 years old and its just broken in.

[cletus]

20 years would probably be sensible then it would align with 20+ yo cars not needing to meet standards for importing etc  

[KKtrips]

NZTA and sensible are mutually exclusive.

[Kiwibirdman]

Where this could get interesting is if someone has bought a new Hilux off a Dealer and said give me everything including bull bars etc on a new vehicle. If the bull bar fitted by the dealer doesn't meet standard then there could be a claim under consumer law.

What has been the go with raised 4x4s and the dodgy upper ball joints?

[KKtrips]

A dealer would only sell factory bulbars etc which will be airbag compliant.

[RXFORD]

Another issue I see, is how can it be proven the bullbar is non-oem or a not factory fitted option?

I'd be surprised if cops/wof inspectors had an approved list with pics and info, and then to go a step furthur are police/wof inspectors going to have issues with pre '99 non-frontal impact vehicles because they don't fully know the rules?

Don't get me wrong, I think a bunch of shiny mall crawler 2wd utes with winch bars that are only held on by a few 10mm fasteners is pretty lame, but seems like it may not have been thought out too well and unfortunatly Lvvta will probably bare the brunt of it. 

[KKtrips]

5 minutes ago, RXFORD said:

Another issue I see, is how can it be proven the bullbar is non-oem or a not factory fitted option?

I'd be surprised if cops/wof inspectors had an approved list with pics and info, and then to go a step furthur are police/wof inspectors going to have issues with pre '99 non-frontal impact vehicles because they don't fully know the rules?

Don't get me wrong, I think a bunch of shiny mall crawler 2wd utes with winch bars that are only held on by a few 10mm fasteners is pretty lame, but seems like it may not have been thought out too well and unfortunatly Lvvta will probably bare the brunt of it. 

They have to have an ADR compliant label on the bullbar.

[kws]

5 hours ago, KKtrips said:

A dealer would only sell factory bulbars etc which will be airbag compliant.

Don't count on it 

[Mof]

They don't, because they haven't needed to