No negligence on wheel loss
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Pisa
I 6
• KL&S Winter of Heddon in Hull was given an absolute discharge after admitting using a vehicle with dangerous parts following a wheel loss incident on the M62.
Dewsbury magistrates were told that a Scania rigid livestock transporter carrying pigs lost the rear nearside twin wheels, the wheels ending up 275 metres away from the vehicle, No wheelnuts could be found in the vicinity of the accident. All the wheel studs were present but showed signs of damage. All 10 stud holes in the wheels showed an abnormal wear pattern.
In the opinion of a police vehicle examiner, the damage had occurred because the wheels became loose immediately before detachment.
The driver of the vehicle, Roland Beverley, said he daily carried out a visual check of the wheelnuts, looking for rust marks or shiny parts, which would indicate that they were loose. About a week before the accident he had tested their tightness with a bar, He had travelled about 160km (100 miles) that day before the detachment occurred without warning.
Director Keith Winter said that whenever wheels were replaced, the drivers were instructed to check the tightness of the nuts. A national tyre company checked the tyres and the security of the wheels each week.
Consultant engineer Ivan Ratcliffe said that nearly all the wheel detachment cases he had experienced involved the rear nearside wheels, which indicated it was not a maintenance problem. If a modern LGV vehicle lost a single wheel stud, or if one wheelnut lost its integrity, the remainder was incapable of retaining the wheel assembly on the hub.
Once the clamping pressure of a single wheelnut was lost, the others quickly wound off. These detachments happened very quickly and he felt in the present case the insecurity would have occurred en route. It was common for the studs to exhibit little damage, and that indicated that the time between a loss of integrity and wheel detachment was very short—he thought perhaps over a distance of five to 20km. It was a design problem. The difficulty was in getting manufacturers to recognise the problem, Defending, Gary Hodgson said that the magistrates had to decide whether the company had been negligent in any way If they had not, the High Court had indicated that an absolute discharge was appropriate.