THE DEFINITIVE TRUCKING SITE

June 2008

Kroonstad in the Free State was the target area for our fifth Brake & Tyre Watch project. Although only eight vehicles were subjected to in-depth inspection, the attention to detail exhibited by our experts while leading the cops through the vehicle faults left the Free State traffic officials fully empowered to conduct tests in the future. It was a case of quality training rather than quantity checking writes Patrick O'Leary.

Regular readers of this magazine will know of our previous Brake & Tyre Watch exercises conducted at City Deep, Middelburg, Centurion and KwaZulu Natal. The results have been reported on in past editions of FleetWatch and to say the least, have been horrific in terms of the number of unroadworthy trucks we've found operating on our roads.

What we found in Kroonstad was equally dismal. Out of eight truck/trailer combinations taken over the brake roller tester for detailed inspection, all eight were taken off the road after being issued with Discontinuation of Services notices. 

The level of roadworthiness of these vehicles was abysmal with defective and - in some instances - no braking systems in place, smooth tyres with other multiple defects, dirt encrusted non-visible hidden reflective tape, chassis cracks, light defects and a host of other faults that come with operators who don't maintain their trucks. The pictures with comments on the following pages in this report will highlight what I'm talking about.

With Kroonstad being situated alongside the extremely busy N1, what we found is hardly good news for users of this national road - and certainly will come as bad news to the people at the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) under whose jurisdiction the N1 falls. SANRAL joined us on this particular exercise as one of our partners given that we were testing close to the N1. It was good having them on board and we thank them for being with us on this one.

The Road Traffic Management Corporation also joined us on this one and with their help, we are in the process of finalising a DVD which we will circulate through FleetWatch to enable our readers and the industry to get a better idea of how it all works on the actual days.

In line with one of the stated aims of the programme, namely, to equip traffic officials with the necessary knowledge to enable them to recognize faults on trucks and thereby better perform their duties, our Kroonstad exercise started with a day's intensive class-room training conducted by experts from our main partner companies. They are Wabco, Control Instruments Automotive, Bridgestone South Africa and Alfa International with the irrepressible Wolfgang Lehmann, trailer expert of note, also there on the test day. This training gave the grounding for the officials to work hands-on with our experts the next day in inspecting the trucks taken off the road for testing.

It was most gratifying seeing the confidence levels of the officers building as the day wore on with officers pointing out defects they may well have missed prior to the training. What was not gratifying, however, was seeing the state of the trucks riding the roads in the Free State. One doesn't have to look far to see why we have around 700 000 vehicle accidents per annum in South Africa.

Once again, we urge all operators to ensure their trucks are roadworthy. Don't wait for the blood of some innocent to stain your hands. And if you don't care, well, may the newly empowered cops will take your vehicles off the roads forever. It really is the right thing to do.

The following photographs contain  of some of what we found. Gross incompetence in some cases and basic maintenance oversight in others. Whatever, it's all wrong so please heed the lessons and avoid this type of stuff in your fleet.