The Transport Minister Mike Penning has agreed to carry out an investigation concerning claims which have been made that suggest many second hand HGV wheels which enter the market are in fact not fit for purpose and they could actually result in a serious if not fatal accident.
On the 29th November 2011 the situation was brought up in a second Westminster debate and Mike Penning stated that he would look into the matter himself. He was going to do this by looking at the failure rates if the trade associations were in a position to provide him with the evidence.
Back in March however, he refused to carry out a study into wheel safety because he said that the records he had showed the failure rate as small and insignificant.
It was MP Paul Goggins who raised the concerns by stating that when an accident occurs the wheel failure rates are not actually being gathered and so the statistics do not represent the actual accidents which occur due to wheel failure.
Used trucks are heavy in weight and are travelling at around 50mph would cause some serious damage. Whilst the government have a stringent system for checking and monitoring the tyres on all vehicles including cars and HGVs the devastating effects caused by a tyre blow out would produce the same results as wheel failure yet the government seems pretty unmoved.
Now all we need to hope for is that the trade associations will gather together their submissions concerning wheel failure and work together as a united body in order to put forward their evidence and hopefully change or bring in some regulations concerning HGV second Hand Wheels. Luckily the Freight Transport Association and the Road Haulage Association have already organised a meeting to discuss this further.
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