LTSA not acting over recalls - Dog and Lemon editor

1.00pm

The Land Transport Safety Authority (LTSA) is failing to protect New Zealanders by not following up vehicle recalls in other countries, an industry editor says.

The Dog and Lemon Guide editor Clive Matthew-Wilson said he had reported several of 396 recalls his magazine had discovered by checking Japanese government and manufacturers's websites. The magazine hired two translators to do the work.

"There appears to be little or no change from Land Transport. They are aware of a lot but are not acting, the phrase for that is asleep at the wheel."

Mr Matthew-Wilson said he felt the LTSA had a passive attitude about recalls and put all its energy into preventing speeding.

"But they fail to take steps to make cars and trucks, buses safer in event of an accident."

He said some of the recalls were very concerning; "cars that could lose their steering, cars that can lose their brakes".

"These are very, very serious things and you can just imagine the consequences if a truck or a car lost its brakes, for example, in the middle of rush hour traffic in Wellington or Auckland."

Mr Matthew-Wilson said there were potentially thousands of cars on New Zealand roads under recall in other countries.

His comments follow Mitsubishi recalls earlier in the year that were publicised on Japanese websites some time before being announced here.

In June LTSA spokesman Andy Knackstedt said the problems with the Mitsubishi recalls showed there was "definitely room for improvement" in policy.

"More does need to be done to try to identify these vehicles quicker."

However, he said accountability must "ultimately rest with the manufacturers of a defective product".

Mr Matthew-Wilson said the LTSA needed to keep on top of recalls and ensure they were enforced here.

Mr Knackstedt said Mr Matthew-Wilson's claim the LTSA was asleep at the wheel was untrue as the Government agency was already working with the industry on better ways of managing recalls.

"I would categorically reject Mr Matthew-Wilson's assertions and I would suggest that he might want to ascertain the facts before he makes these sorts of statements," he said.

The LTSA had been working with the Motor Industry Association (MIA), which represents manufacturers, to develop a code of practice for recall procedures.

"The MIA in doing that would be going beyond what they are actually legally required to do...

"To say we are asleep at the wheel and we've done nothing is nonsense. We have been working very closely and very hard with the industry for some time on this."

Mr Knackstedt said he would check out the recalls which Mr Matthew-Wilson planned to post on a website from Friday but emphasised it was the manufacturer's responsibility to institute a recall.

"We need to look at the individual vehicles and see how many of them are on the road in New Zealand and in what numbers. In many cases we literally might be talking about one or two cars."

Many recalls would not be safety-related and would be for such things as faulty air-conditioning.

- NZPA