[Tenrocca]

Pinched from the Oz Clubbies Site - meeting yesterday at the RTA about the new Certification Scheme. Post by an engineer who attended:

G'day guys,

After a long day of trains and driving, I've got some information for you all on the new engineering signatories scheme for NSW.

First of all, go here:

http://www.rta.nsw.g...sccs/index.html

this is information from the RTA now in the public domain about how to become a licensed inspector. There are some changes, and for ICV engineers, it's going to be a little tougher than before, but not much.

The main thing the RTA mentioned was their commitment to safety, and that they expect others to meet NSW's standards, not drop their standards to those of the other states. Unfortunately this feels to me that they will be stricter than before. the other interesting number I got was that NSW RTA deal with 6,000+ modifications a year, and apparently (this is their number, not mine) WA has only 18. of these 18, 6 were involved in serious accidents. sounds a little implausible, but that's what was mentioned.

Back to the ICV engineer issue. If you download the application form from the website, you can see it is split into 5 categories - bikes, cars, omnibuses, etc, and each of these has sub-categories, such as engine, brakes, to a total of 7 sub categories. One sub category is 'whole vehicle', and another is 'import vehicle', so to get either of these, you must have the complete 'set' of the 5 beforehand.

For those in NSW who have an engineer on the old scheme, he can still operate as he is at the moment until the end of this financial year; after that, all engineers must be on the new system, all cars must be approved on the new system. check with your engineer to see if they will be on the new system and that they will be applying for 'IC' (whole vehicle) in Passenger Vehicles.

Another minor shake-up is that the certification number will be linked to RTA and police computers; the whole report will be included, and we as signatories will be encouraged to include photographs etc so that they can see at a glance that the car present matches the modified car in the report. This is to stop (for example) me certifying you with a seat modification, then you deciding you want a different seat to the modified one, and changing it again. There's still a certificate saying 'seat change' but it doesn't identify the seat. Now with access to the report roadside, they can prove that modifications are uncertified. This si more of an enforcement thing, but it will also mean that the reports are easily accessible - it may help when it comes to buying one.

The other thing is that they will be publishing a list of what is required to prove that something meets the expectations of the ADR's i.e. 'what do you need to do to pass ADR-XX?' sheets, so that they can standardise the submitted information. This seems like the most interesting thing that I gathered from the meeting, and will help a lot.

Right, I have to get to work and fill in application forms, and dust of my CV to show the areas I'm applying for...

Treeve