[suthol]

G'day All,

As a bit of an introduction I'm one of the admins over on Ozclubbies and a member of the Clubman drivers club of Australia and have a completed Lotus 7 replica that I am having difficulties getting registered in NSW due to the Light Vehicle Safety section of the RTA instructing the engineering inspection department on items that they now want dynamically tested.

The instructions include, all ICVs to be brake tested, beam & torsion tested, seat mounts and seat belt anchor points to be dynamically tested and an ADR 10-02 compliant steering column, this is irrespective of what compliance data you kit manufacturer may give you.

The seat mount and seat belt tests will set you back around $6 - $8K, they are tested together as described in the ADR and will definitely damage your seats and also compromise the strength of all of the mounts points.

Dan Leavy the GM of Vehicle Safety is driving this and despite saying he doesn't want destructive testing he won't accept " your " engineers learned opinion or accept FEA.

The inspection engineers are up in arms but their hands are tied from above.

Dan Leavy, our current speedhump is not an automotive engineer rather he came from Workcover and was a crane inspector.

The clubman fraternity is strong and we have or are in the process of putting working parties together to work with the RTA and their interstate buddies to try to come to a more satisfactory arrangement.

Our group has already been in touch with the ombudsman who in turn instructed the RTA to talk to us and has asked us to respond back to him if we are not satisfied.


What zedn is trying to do here is gather from the Cobra Club a table of issues and the dates that these issues arose so that we can build a table and timeline that shows the moving goal posts.

Whether you guys choose to come along for the ride is neither here or there but we would really prefer to have a cross section of all types of ICV and not just clubman's to further reinforce to both the executive management of the RTA and the ombudsman that the regime is totally out of control.

I have also approached Shannon's to get some data on how many ICVs they have insured and how many have been involved in claims since 2000 so that we can clearly illustrate that ICV owners & builders are not hoons and that we take a lot of pride in what we have achieved.

Over to you.

Regards
Dave King
Suthol VII