Police officers and Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) inspectors swooped on Ron Finemore Transport’s Orange depot on Wednesday.
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Personnel from ‘Operation Ghost’ inspected 51 trucks and trailers and issued eight infringement notices for various offences, with officers finding “ineffective” loading practises during a trailer inspection.
Three speed limiters were inspected and found to be compliant.
The compliance inspection was in the wake of an accident on June 28, when a B-Double tanker which was hauling ethanol to Queensland crashed on the M1 near Gosford following an alleged brake failure.
But in a statement on the company’s website managing director Mark Parry on Wednesday refuted the brake failure allegation, claiming the incident was due to a number of cars braking suddenly.
“The police have confirmed that the driver has been cleared of any wrongdoing,” the statement read.
“Images captured by the driver safety system and witness reports from people in front of our truck make it clear that our driver’s response and actions helped avoid a major incident.”
Mr Parry said telemetry showed the truck driver had recently taken an eight-hour break, was not speeding and was not distracted or driving dangerously.
“As a result of this incident the RMS and NSW Police are carrying out additional checks on our fleet at Orange and inspection stations at Mt Boyce and Marulan.”
NSW Police acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said the operation served “as a reminder to any trucking company, that our officers will respond to any major incident and go over their trucks, their books and processes with a fine-tooth comb”.
“We make no apologies for conducting these types of operations in order to make all road users safe from dangerous trucks,” Assistant Commissioner Smith said.
Mr Parry said the company had received “positive feedback” from the inspections on Wednesday.
“The inspections did identify a small number of minor defects and issues,” he said.
“We have already commenced rectifying these and working with our drivers and supply chain partners to put in place corrective and preventative measures to deal with the matters raised.”