Manslaughter considered in truck death

The case in which a 32-year-old man was decapitated by a flying section of a truck's driveshaft was at first investigated as a possible manslaughter.

This emerged yesterday during coroner Dr Murray Jamieson's inquest into the death of Eddie Tavinor, a Pukekohe father-of-three and plasterer, on November 20, 2000.

Mr Tavinor was driving north on Auckland's Southern Motorway. He died instantly near Penrose at about 10.30am when a driveshaft broke off a southbound container truck and part of it bounced over the median barrier and through his ute's windscreen.

Last July, the Crown decided not to lay charges over Mr Tavinor's death.

Yesterday, North Shore police crash analyst Senior Constable Stuart Kearns told the inquest that in April last year he obtained a search warrant relating to the truck's maintenance, because at that stage the inquiry involved possible manslaughter.

It was usual for police to seek a District Court search warrant in the hunt for evidence when investigating what might be a serious offence, he told Crown lawyer Ross Bush.

Mr Kearns and Mitsubishi Motors' lawyer Les Taylor clashed over the need for the warrant in the police quest for a manual for the Dana/Spicer driveshaft at Roadlife Trucks, the Mitsubishi-owned Penrose workshop where the truck was serviced.

Mr Taylor said Mitsubishi had written to Mr Kearns after the accident to say a manual was at the workshop.

Mr Kearns: I suppose if one was available, one would have been sent to us.

Mr Taylor: Are you suggesting that when they wrote this letter saying, "The manuals are down there, they are available to you", they were telling you a porkie?

Mr Kearns: Mr Taylor, you have already suggested to me the manuals were there. The manuals were not there when we searched the premises. Nor were they available to the staff of Roadlife because not one staff member could find that manual. Therefore I can draw the conclusion that the manual was never there.

Mr Taylor: Well, that's a fairly wild conclusion to draw ... when they are writing to you nine days after the accident and saying it's available to you at any time.

The policeman later acknowledged Mitsubishi had co-operated fully with the inquiry.

At Mr Taylor's request, Mr Kearns read a Mitsubishi document on advice it circulated after the accident.

It included re-issuing the Dana/Spicer manual and specifying that a hoop be mounted under the driveshafts of all Mitsubishi trucks to contain them if they failed.

Former Roadlife foreman mechanic Vaughan Trembath, who now works in Tauranga, said he oversaw a gearbox repair on the truck in question in which the front driveshaft had to be disconnected eleven days before the accident.

When shown the Dana/Spicer manual, he said he had never seen it before. He had received no specific training on Dana/Spicer driveshafts while at Roadlife.

The truck's front driveshaft was off the vehicle at least three times in 2000, Mr Trembath said.

But there was no obvious need to replace the two bearings on the front universal joint.

The joint - which was the point of failure in the accident that killed Mr Tavinor - must be partially disassembled to detach the driveshaft.

The practice had been to reuse the straps which retained the bearings, rather than replace them in line with Dana/Spicer's recommendation.

Asked if he knew of this recommendation at the time, he said any such requirement would normally be stamped on vehicle parts.

Questioned by the coroner, Mr Trembath said that accidents such as the one which killed Mr Tavinor could be prevented by an improvement in "the whole country's attitude" and returning to the "old school" where trucks were greased much more frequently than now.

But he told Mr Taylor that the owner of the truck had given Roadlife enough time to fix it.