Sentencing delay over freak, fatal accident

The truck missing two wheels on the Southern Motorway at Otahuhu. Photo / NZPA

The court sentencing of a south Auckland automotive workshop over a freak fatal road accident has been delayed until next year.

Counties Automotive Diesel Repair Limited was charged with failing to take practical safety steps after a wheel came loose from a truck in January, bounced over the median barrier on Auckland's Southern Motorway and hit a bus, killing a front seat passenger.

The company was to be sentenced in Pukekohe District Court today but the hearing was adjourned for a call-over next month to set another sentencing date.

Another company, Maximum Transport Limited, pleaded not guilty to the same charge but that was withdrawn when the company went into liquidation last week.

The charges against both companies, laid by the Department of Labour, were that they failed to take all practical steps to ensure that the actions or inactions of an employee did not harm another person.

Vietnamese man Lam Xuan Hu, 24, was hit by the 80kg truck wheel when it smashed through the front window of the bus.

He died the next day when his life support system was turned off at Middlemore Hospital.

- NZPA