The Heavy Vehicle Brakes Rule and its implementation

The Heavy Vehicle Brakes Rule (HVBR) applies to all heavy vehicles. Heavy vehicles are vehicles with a gross vehicle mass of 3500 kg or more.

The HVBR covers two implementation issues:

• Standards compliance – for imported, modified or New Zealand-built heavy vehicles
• In-service brakes testing – to ensure adequate braking in all conditions of loading.

Factsheets

• Guide to vehicle tie-down points for chassis load simulation - and letter (PDF, 686 KB)
• March 2008 (PDF, 185 KB)
• February 2008 (104 KB)
• November 2007 (PDF, 89 KB)

Question and answers

Answers to some frequently asked questions about implementation of the heavy vehicle brakes rule.

Changes to chassis ratings from 1 July 2008

The Heavy Vehicle Brakes Rule came into force on 1 March 2007 and included the requirement that all heavy vehicles entering the New Zealand fleet after 1 July 2008 would need to prove they had been certified as meeting an approved brake standard.

Means of proving the heavy vehicle meets an approved brake standard are given in:

• Vehicle inspection requirements manual: Entry certification, Brakes: 8-1 Service brake and park brake (PDF, 232 KB), pages 8-1-3 and 8-1-4, and
• Vehicle inspection requirements manual: Entry certification, Technical bulletin 31 – Brakes standard compliance (PDF, 287 KB).

As a result of heavy vehicle brakes now having to meet an approved brake standard, there have been changes to the chassis ratings that can be applied to used heavy vehicles imported from Japan. From 1 July 2008 vehicles will no longer be able to get chassis ratings altered from those that were applied to a vehicle when it was on the road in Japan. The key change is that a vehicle’s gross vehicle mass (GVM) must now be that on the vehicle’s deregistration (or export) certificate. Nominal towing capacities will be based on Article 12 of the Safety Regulations of Japan. Towing capacities greater than these can be determined by a Land Transport NZ-recognised engineer.

The new method may create some discrepancies between the chassis ratings obtained for these vehicles and vehicles put on the road before 1 July 2008. Those earlier values were determined by a different method which is no longer able to be applied under the Heavy Vehicle Brakes Rule.

Because the new method is simpler than the previous method, there will be no charge for chassis ratings from 1 July 2008.

For chassis ratings submitted from 1 July 2008 onwards the following procedures and application forms are to be used:

• CR1 chassis rating procedure (PDF, 51KB)
• CR2 powered vehicles chassis rating request form (PDF, 51 KB)
• CR3 trailers chassis rating request form (PDF, 57 KB)

Heavy Vehicle Brakes Rule software

There have been delays with the completion and satisfactory trialling of the new Heavy Vehicle Brakes Rule software which was to be ready for HVEK certifiers to use from 1 July 2008 to certify vehicles to Schedule 5 of Land Transport Rule: Heavy-vehicle Brakes 2006.

The decision has been made to gazette the current version (version 5.3) of the Brake Code under 10.6(8) of the Brake Rule so it can be used from 1 July 2008 until 31 July 2008 (inclusive) for certification to Schedule 5.

Please note the following points about the DOS-based Brake Code software:

• The program runs on Windows XP.
• Printing graphs and certificates of compliance from within the program can be difficult. However, screen shots (Shift+print screen) are acceptable versions of graphs and certificates for certification and record keeping purposes. This can be achieved using a program called DOSBox which can be downloaded.
• Schedule 5 requires laden and unladen performance verification. The Brake Code program must be run for both cases for certification to Schedule 5 of the Rule.

The following links allow you to download the Brake Code program (version 5.3) and the user manual. All HVEK certifiers are permitted to use these.

• Brake Code program (EXE, 141 KB)
• Brake Code user manual (Word, 674 KB)

Rule links

• Heavy Vehicle Brakes Rule. Also available as a PDF (647 KB)
• Heavy Vehicle Brakes Rule - Questions and answers

Page updated: 16 July 2008