Tyre defect charge dismissed
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A CHARGE of using a sixwheeled tipper lorry on M6 with a tyre having a portion of cord structure exposed, failed before Lancaster magistrates last week.
The police prosecuted William Robinson (Bilsborrow) Ltd, Billsborrow, near Preston, and one of its drivers, Peter Dickson of Garstang, under S.99 of The Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations, 1973.
Evidence was given that when the vehicle was stopped on the motorway it was found that the front inner tyre on the rear offside was showing a piece of cord structure of about one inch by half an inch in the centre of the tread. The witness had not measured the depth of the cut but estimated it at from three-sixteenths to one-quarter of an inch and the cord could he seen at the bottom.
Driver Dickson said he had checked the tyres on the morning of the alleged offence but saw no cut. When the police pointed out the defect to him he was not able to see any cord.
Mr W. Robinson, the company's managiwig director, told the court that he used Michelin tubeless tyres on all his vehicles. An average of £300-£350 a month was spent on tyres for the three at present in operation. When the vehicle arrived back on the day in question he could see no cord through the cut.
The defence called a tyre expert, Mr D. O'Hanion, from the technical division of Michelin at Stoke-on-Trent, who produced cutaway samples of tubeless tyres and explained their construci He said that if even if the had been bald, which it not, there were seven or e millimetres of rubber (al ten-twentyfifths of an ii before reaching the first h of metal. This first metal the breaker strip, which not an essential part of tyre but protected the structure from damage.
Accepting a submission no case to answer from J. A. Backhouse, defend the magistrates dismissed summonses against both fendants.