\u201cThey arrive, and contractors already can\u2019t drive them on roads – that\u2019s before they\u2019ve even added tools or equipment to the back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, the Government said it would address the issue.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Transport said it was working on a range of reforms to land transport rules for heavy vehicles – but the timing for new rules for agricultural vehicles was not clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe review of weight limits is a longer-term piece of work to review the vehicle dimension and mass (VDAM) rule,\u201d Olsen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis rule sets out the maximum permitted weight, width and length for vehicles operated on New Zealand\u2019s roads – including heavy agricultural vehicles. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognise that the VDAM rule has not kept pace with developments in the industry, such as performance improvements in modern vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because this work required significant research and analysis, the timing of any changes had not yet been confirmed, a ministry spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Olsen said that was frustrating, and feared changes could be years away.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe this should be a priority – it\u2019s about managing those oversized vehicles on the road and determining not that they are safe, but that they are roadworthy and able to meet the standard without needing to necessarily add a whole lot of complexity around obtaining a piece of paper to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a productivity issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very complicated to get an overweight permit – there\u2019s a few ways to do it, but none of them are simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olsen respected that it would not be a straightforward or quick process to develop new rules, but he just wanted them to get underway.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have a lot of time because these machines are on the road now, and we need to find a common-sense and pragmatic solution to this sooner rather than later. \u201d<\/p>\n
He said since the Government signalled change, fines issued had reduced – but he was not sure if that was because regulators were being more lenient or if contractors were working harder to get permits.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThey arrive, and contractors already can\u2019t drive them on roads – that\u2019s before they\u2019ve even added tools or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26216,12967,266,160455,17374,12597,117,111,43,139,69,1314,6122,8909,61,4524,102],"class_list":{"0":"post-288923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-agricultural","9":"tag-farmers","10":"tag-government","11":"tag-hurry","12":"tag-machinery","13":"tag-murphy","14":"tag-new","15":"tag-new-zealand","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-road","20":"tag-rules","21":"tag-sally","22":"tag-to","23":"tag-want","24":"tag-with"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}