New South Wales Roads Minister Duncan Gay has ordered the Cootes Transport fleet off the road for safety inspections again, showing a lack of faith in interstate inspection regimes.

Cootes has been the subject of several probes since a fatal crash near the town of Mona Vale last year, the most recent random checks by NSW Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) last week found problems; “including 35 inspections at Wetherill Park and Port Botany which resulted in 17 vehicles with major defects immediately ordered off the road for repairs.”

“These random inspections uncovered significant failures,” Mr Gay said this week.

“This was in addition to two incidents involving Cootes vehicles late last week which presented major defects.

“While we acknowledge there have been some improvements in the fleet, it is simply not good enough that in some cases we have seen repairs that don’t meet our standards during a second or third check.

“Despite four months of ongoing work with Cootes and the parent company McAleese, I have ordered all their NSW tankers be subject to Roads and Maritime compliance checks yet again – just as we did immediately after the Mona Vale tragedy.

“This applies to all tankers that need to operate in NSW, not just the ones registered in NSW.

“I want to assure motorists we have been carrying out extensive inspections and random checks of this fleet since the tragic double fatality on Mona Vale road last October.

“RMS inspectors have carried out more than 450 checks of the Cootes fleet at inspection stations and on roadsides across the state to ensure compliance with roadworthiness standards.”

The latest inspections come under some new national auspices, with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) kicking off this week. Some reports say the chairman of the McAleese Group which owns Cootes Transport, Mr Mark Rowsthorn, could face prosecution under new chain-of-responsibility laws.

There have not been any formal allegations implicating Mr Rowsthorn.