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Discharged over wheel-loss
Page 32
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• A pair of wheels came off a tractor unit on the M4 and nobody at the company involved was able to explain why, heard Newport magistrates.
S :Jones (Aldridge) and driver Roger Seeley pleaded guilty at Newport magistrates court to using a vehicle in a dangerous condition. But the magistrates accepted that neither the company nor Seeley had been to blame and gave both absolute discharges with no order as to costs.
The magistrates were told that last November police officers found an ERE artic on the hard shoulder of the M4. The rear nearside wheels on the tractor unit had become detached. One wheel was found on the hard shoulder 50 yards in front of the vehicle and the other had crossed the carriageway on to the hard shoulder of the A48M 100 yards away. The court heard that the wheel studs were still intact but none of the wheelnuts could be found and there was very little damage to the studs and holes.
The vehicle examiner also said that the reason the wheelnuts had come off was unknown. Seeley said that he had carried out a visual check of the wheels before setting off from Bristol that morning and had travelled 65 kilometres before the wheels came off. The wheelnuts had been routinely physically checked for tightness the Wednesday before, the court was told.
Fleet engineer Alan Ball said the company's vehicles were inspected every six weeks and a tyre company checked the tyres and wheel fixings every six months.
Consultant engineer Ivan Ratcliffe said that nearly all the
wheel-loss cases he knew involved the rear nearside wheels, which indicated that it was not a maintenance problem.
He added that if one wheelnut loosened the remainder were incapable of retaining the wheel assembly on the hub. He said that it was common for studs to exhibit little damage and that indicated that the time between a loosening and wheel detachment was very short.
In this case, he felt that the loosening occurred during the journey and that the wheelnuts would not have been loose when the driver set off.
Gary Hodgson, defending, said that "lost wheel syndrome" was mentioned in Driving Skills— Your Large Goods Vehicle Driving Test. published by the Driving Standards Agency, Research was continuing into why LGV vehicles lost wheels even when the wheelnuts had been checked before the journey he said.