CALL FOR LOOSEWHEEL ACTION
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I am writing about the matter of wheels coming off, or loosening, from tractor units. Every week you can open a paper, book, or one of your issues and in them someone usually blames the manufacturer, tyre company or, as in most cases, the driver.
The truth is that the owner or transport manager are at fault for not making sure his/ her trucks are maintained in a correct manner.
The reason I say this is because I worked for a meat company for 17 years, up to last year, which had a fleet of ERFs and Leyland Roadtrains. In the early days, when the company first acquired the ERFs, it did have two or three loose wheels which worried the management. They got over this, however, by making the mechanics responsible for the security of the wheels.
When the trucks came back to base, mainly at weekends, a fitter went round every wheel nut on every truck, checking for cracked wheel rims and torquing each nut. If the fitter did not like the look of a wheel nut or stud, for any reason, it would be replaced. Let's face it — a 38-tonner going at 96km/h (60mph) for 75% of its working week has got to have some professional attention to its wheels, rather than leaving it in the hands of the driver. I think tyre companies should provide a service where their depots could torque up the nuts for the drivers. A driver should not be allowed to keep jumping on a wheel brace and bar, because this only stretches the studs' thread and strips the wheel nuts. This, in my mind, is one of the reasons that companies get the trouble they have with wheels.
John Garlick,
Hollingworth, Cheshire.