No penalty for MG wheel loss
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• Haulier Brown (Carlisle) and one of its drivers were not to blame for a wheel coming off one of its vehicles on the M6, Warrington magistrates have ruled. The company and driver Paul Duncan admitted using a vehicle in a condition so unsuitable that danger was likely to be caused.
The magistrates were told that the front nearside wheel of the tandem-axle semi-trailer had come off at Thelwall in February, crossed the carriageway and hit a Metro car, slightly injuring the driver. A vehicle examiner called to the scene had said that in his opinion the loss was due to corrosion of the wheelnuts and washers.
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Duncan said that he had made a visual check when he collected the loaded trailer in Carlisle. He saw no sign of any shininess or rust marks to indicate that the wheelnuts were loose. He had not been aware that the wheel had come off until the driver of a following company vehicle called him on the cab phone to say he had lost a wheel.
Michael McKie, a fitter employed by Brown, said that he had inspected the semi-trailer in January when the wheelnuts had been checked with a torque wrench. Consultant engineer Ivan Ratcliffe said that if a single wheel stud was lost, or if one wheelnut became loose, the others were incapable of retaining the wheel assembly on the hub. His experience was that wheel detachments almost always involved nearside wheels. That indicated that it was not a maintenance problem: the nearside wheels took the heaviest loading. It was common for the studs to exhibit little damage, which indicated that the time between a loss of integrity and wheel detachment was very short. He felt that wheel loss was a legacy of the increasing size of lorries and road speeds.
Today's vehicles were running on wheels with the same number and size of wheelnuts as 20 years ago, when the maximum weight was 28 tonnes.
There was bound to be rust on the surfaces, said Ratcliffe, but not on the clamping surfaces. In his opinion, the wheelnuts had come loose a few miles before the wheel came off.
Defending, Gary Hodgson argued that the company and driver had been blameless and had not been negligent. The company had followed advice in Department of Transport leaflets and Duncan had no reason to suspect there was any problem with the wheel.