In a report to last week’s council audit, finance and risk committee meeting, council health and safety manager Alan Thomas said the Waste Management truck’s "bin arm" would not pick up a bin on Adelaide St, due to little weight within it, and the bin moved away from the arm while the pick-up was attempted.
The driver exited the cab of the vehicle to reposition the bin, but as that happened, the vehicle immediately started to roll backwards down the hill, towards Park St and the lake.
Mr Thomas’ summary said on its way down the hill, the truck struck a stone wall and both the truck and wall were damaged as a result, but no environmental damage was caused.
"As the driver exited the cab, they were caught by the vehicle until being ejected on to the road, sustaining minor cuts and bruises."
The police commercial vehicle safety team investigated the incident and no mechanical faults were found.
Cab-mounted video showed the driver, who had not been involved in any other serious incident, failed to properly engage the brake lever before getting out of the cab.
The contractor’s internal investigation found no "documented evidence" of the driver completing training for the vehicle. However, following further investigation with the driver, trainer and operations manager, it was determined that it had occurred, but had not been signed off.
The contractor had redone the training, and it had been signed off, while Waste Management had also revisited its training and highlighted the "correct use of the handbrake", Mr Thomas said to the committee.
Two investigations were conducted and neither found any mechanical issue, concluding the incident was caused by "operator error".
However, councillor Glyn Lewers said the recommendations — to ensure all paperwork was signed, reviewed and uploaded before a driver was allowed to use the unit, and to review work instructions to ensure handbrake engagement and warning systems were clearly identified and communicated when delivering training and assessing — were "administrative".
"When I see what is actually in the brief and what actually happened, my engineering brain goes, ‘have we asked the contractor to investigate whether we can modify the brake system so there’s some form of mechanical interlock so it does not happen again?’."
Mr Thomas said he had not asked for that to happen.
Mr Lewers said "I’d rather try [to] eliminate that design."
