More than 300 Christchurch buses are undergoing urgent brake tests after VTNZ admitted its inspectors had not done them properly for a period last year.
Red Bus and Go Bus companies stressed none of their vehicles had suffered brake failures in service, but they insisted on getting 305 buses checked after a Stuff investigation alerted them to problems with testing at VTNZ’s Lichfield St premises.
Only one out of 190 buses rechecked so far has failed a test to ensure front and back air brakes can operate independently, so if one set loses air, the other takes over.
Red Bus chief executive Paul McNoe said the bus that failed had been repaired, and he was organising immediate inspections of Red Travel vehicles on tour around the South Island.
VTNZ does about a million vehicle inspections a year, including warrants of fitness (WOFs) for cars and certificates of fitness (COFs) for trucks and buses, and it has 82 branches nationally.
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