of eight counts of failing to comply with its health and safety duty on the basis it had failed to adequately train and supervise the driver and maintain a safe system of work., had obtained his heavy vehicle licence two months before the accident and had worked for the company for just days.
"The risks of a collision between a heavy vehicle like the vacuum truck and other road users arising from a failure to control its speed on the steep descent along the freeway into a busy suburban intersection was obvious and unusual," he said. "There was no practical reason for not assessing Mr Hicks's competence in gear selection for a descent of the freeway before he was directed to drive the vacuum truck down the freeway."
"The brake failure was both a circumstance against which competence in the use of gears was a safeguard, and a problem which was exacerbated by Mr Hicks's failure to use the gears effectively.