29 Aug 2013

More buses ordered off road in Wellington

9:58 pm on 29 August 2013

Thirty percent of buses checked by the police in the Wellington region have been ordered off the road after safety faults were found.

The police have spent the last two days examining buses to check that faults identified in May, when 11 buses were ordered off the roads, had been fixed.

But they say the situation has got worse - with 28 of the 104 checked being pink-stickered for leaking flammable liquid, having loose battery boxes and doors that shut with too much force.

A police spokesperson says not all buses could be checked because of a power outage that forced some trolley buses off the road on Thursday morning.

A Wellington Regional Council spokesperson says a cherry picker trailer unit is understood to have snagged trolley bus wires, causing a power outage to the Kilbirnie and Haitaitai lines.

The spokesperson says the overhead wires have been fixed in Kilbirnie but those in Haitaitai would not be fixed until Thursday afternoon.