Russia bans imports, sales of Shacman SX3258 trucks
MOSCOW. Feb 11 (Interfax) - Russia has banned imports and sales of Chinese Shacman SX3258 trucks, which were inspected for compliance with technical regulations, regulator Rosstandart said.
Based on the results of an unscheduled inspection of Shacman's official representative office, Russia invoked a safeguard clause of the Customs Union technical regulation "On the safety of wheeled vehicles," in accordance with which the vehicle type approval issued for Shackman SX3258 trucks was suspended (including its distribution).
"The control and oversight measure was carried out in coordination with prosecution authorities. The reason that Rosstandard made this decision is SX3258 model Shacman vehicles' noncompliance with a whole range of requirements for wheeled vehicles, specifically regarding noise restrictions, rear under-run and side protection devices and so on, found in the course of carried out control (oversight) measures," the regulator said in a press release.
The identified violations "pose significant danger to the health and life of the actual drivers of the vehicles, as well as to other participants of road traffic," Rosstandart said.
"The noncompliance regarding the rear under-run protection (or so called under-run bar) and side protective devices pose a direct threat to the life and health of drivers and passengers of cars, which will be severely damaged if they get into a traffic accident with such a truck. In turn, the violations regarding noise restrictions are a factor of operational stress that directly affect the wellbeing and health of the driver of such a truck and contributes to his tiredness, which ultimately can become the reason for a traffic accident," the regulator said.
Driver stress "related to heightened background noise can lead to health issues such as headaches, dizziness and aggravation of blood pressure," it said.
A number of orders regarding this have been issued to the representative of the plant that manufactures Shacman trucks, including to organize and clear with Rosstandart a recall campaign to eliminate the structural violations of the trucks, both those that have already been sold and those that have not.
"Secondly, any type of sale of Shacman SX3258 trucks must be stopped. Administrative penalties will be applied for violation of this requirement," Rosstandart said.
The regulator also said that it had earlier sent Shacman's representative company in Russia a notice that its products were noncompliant with the requirements of the technical regulation. "A working meeting was held and presented draft recall programs were repeatedly considered," Rosstandart said.
The regulator, citing tentative information, said "more than 15,000 potentially dangerous Shacman SX3258 trucks, of which 2,170 are already in operation," have been imported into Russia.