Trucking - Wheel-loss hit sparks three vehicle cut
Article courtesy of Trucking Magazine

A wheel-loss incident has led to the licence held by Carnoustie-based DJ Laing (Contracts) Ltd being cut from 30 to 27 vehicles and 15 trailers for a period of four weeks.
Vehicle examiner Martin Bell told Scottish Traffic Commissioner Joan Aitkin that on June 24 he was called to the scene of a road traffic accident on the southbound carriageway of the A90.

A doctor had pulled into a lay-by to speak on her phone. As she sat in her car, it was struck in the rear by a wheel, causing injury to the doctor and extensive damage to her car. The wheel was one of two that had become detached from the third axle of a laden tipper belonging to the company and driven by a Mr Adamson. The other wheel had continued down the left-hand side of the road, rebounding off the central reservation barrier.

When interviewed, Adamson had admitted he had not checked the wheels as part of his daily walk-round check. He stated he had checked the wheels a couple of days earlier. Bell found Adamson’s attitude to be flippant.

A previous wheel replacement had been undertaken by Carnoustie Tyres and the third axle tyres on the vehicle concerned had been replaced prior to its annual test on June 6. Bell could find no evidence that the wheels had subsequently been retorqued, which he would expect to happen after 30 to 50 kilometres. Carnoustie Tyres recommended retorqueing, but this advice was passed on verbally and only if someone was present when the wheels were changed.

There was no procedure to ensure that a driver would know if a vehicle’s wheel had been changed or needed retorqueing unless he was present when the wheel was changed. Wheel markers were not in common use in the company.He had made a series of recommendations to the company, all of which had been adopted, said Bell.

Managing director David Laing said that drivers were instructed to check their vehicles every morning, and that tyres and wheels were part of that inspection. Adamson, who had been with the company eight months, had been issued with a verbal warning as it was thought at the time that there were faults on both sides.

On reflection, he considered that it should have been a final written warning. Prior to the incident, they had not kept a written record of work done by Carnoustie Tyres, but if the driver had checked his vehicle that morning, it should have been sufficient to prevent the incident happening. They now require all drivers to do daily nil defect reporting, instead of completing a defect sheet when a defect was found. All vehicles are now fitted with wheelnut markers.

Plant manager David Galloway said he had gone round the vehicle with Adamson two weeks before, going over the dos and don’ts. He found Adamson a ‘bit of a lad,’ who came across as knowing everything.

For the company, Michael Whiteford said that it had been a one-off incident due to driver error. Nobody in the company was in any doubt as to the seriousness of the daily walk-round checks. He argued that a warning would suffice in the circumstances.

Curtailing the licence, the Commissioner said that, to a lay person, a very obvious reason for having the Vehicle Inspectorate and the O-licensing system was to prevent other road users, including pedestrians, from being injured or worse, by bits coming off lorries.

Galloway’s reservation about Adamson’s attitude should have put the company on notice to keep an eye on his actual performance. Nobody seemed to have checked up on him.

Aitkin accepted that there had to be trust between employers and professional drivers, and that a professional driver could not divest himself of responsibility. Where a driver exhibited a questionable attitude and was relatively new to a company, checking would seem to be a reasonable step.

There was no evidence of the necessary retorqueing of the nearside third axle wheels of the vehicle concerned. There seemed no way of ensuring that it happened or spotting that it had not, which represented a real breakdown in communication within the company’s maintenance systems.

Given the importance to safety of daily walk-round checks, she was concerned that the company response had been to give the driver a verbal warning. It had taken the incident itself, and the time and involvement of the Vehicle Inspectorate, to ensure that the company had proper systems in place.

She accepted that the company fully realised the seriousness of what had happened and the threat that the incident posed to the continuation of its O-licence. She commended the company for its willingness to fully co-operate with the Vehicle Inspectorate and for their apparent frankness, but she could not accede to the suggestion that a warning was enough. That would send out quite the wrong message; a message comparable to the driver’s initial verbal warning, which she had found to be inappropriate.

She had considered whether to curtail the licence by a greater number of vehicles and for a longer period, but took into account the otherwise good record of the company and its willingness to co-operate with the recommendations made to it.

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