The jury got it right on the driver! The other two can get raped by a ■■■■■■■■■ man. 
bend over, touch your toes! In it goes, nobody knows 
Own Account Driver:
Rowley010:
Does anyone know what was actually wrong with the brakes? Articles just say they were defective? And what would a driver experienced or inexperienced have noticed on the checks that would have given them an indication of the defect?Apart from his air pressures and warnings in the cab what should he have actually seen that an experienced driver may have picked up on?
The primary thrust of the prosecution technical case was the reaction brackets on the automatic slack adjusters had snapped therefore preventing them adjusting automatically. As the brake material wears the slack adjusters adjust automatically and take up that slack to make sure the shoes remain close to the drum and also the slack adjuster remains at an angle to the brake chamber push rod that ensures maximum torque on the s cam.
That’s sort if it. However, the figures for how much out of adjustment they were weren’t really that much and not really what ought to lead to catastrophic failure.
According to eye witnesses there was smoke and a very strong smell of burnt brakes that the driver presumably missed. I would suspect that there were almost certainly signs of brake fade before he turned into the hill ie the truck seeming to roll on and coming to a ‘soft’ stop. In terms of drum brakes out of adjustment they tend to be quite ‘clunky’ and there maybe a noticeable delay between pushing the pedal and the shoes hitting the drum.
Maximum use of engine braking by running down the gears combined with use of the exhaust brake and good forward planning that avoids last minute heavy braking help prevents brakes overheating.
Was the exhaust brake working and had he been using it ?
Jury definitely got it right. If the issue with the brakes was something you couldn’t have noticed on your walk round checks and then only someone who is experienced may have realised once out the road, it would have been totally unfair to put any blame on this new driver. Poor guy has to live with it for the rest of his life now because of a boss who was probably trying to save money by not employing a transport manager and not maintaining the vehicle properly. Money is the root of all evil.
Carryfast:
shep532:
I think the current training and testing regime simply is not good enough.But to comment on What Juddian has posted - the current driving style taught would be OK
I think you’ve contradicted yourself.Like mine I’m sure that Juddian’s point is the training regime having removed the idea of using gears and thereby engine braking to slow at all times to minimise brake temperatures and maximise reserve heat capacity.All historically based on flawed brakes to slow gears to go block change downshifts police car driving practice which has the potential to cook car brakes let alone heavy truck ones.Bearing in mind that I’ve posted elsewhere evidence taken from Commercial Motor archives going back to 1968 of said police driving instruction method being suggested then for use with trucks.All seemingly based on the idea that drivers don’t have the ability to match road and engine speeds correctly during downshifts,so instead let’s rely on the brakes and just put it into the gear we’ll need to drive away with when we’ve slowed it down on the brakes to the required speed.
A few years back local cops/fire service/ambulance were having a ‘meet the public’ at a classic vehicle show: one of the traffic cops remarked that on a fast response on local up and down Pennine roads, the Volvo estates ‘cooked the brakes’, which the BMW’s didn’t.
Which, as suggested, indicates that g-t-g/b-t-s is not ideal even for some cars.
AndrewG:
Driver being cleared was the right decision, too young and inexperienced to really know whether the brakes were defective or not, he wouldnt have been able to compare with anything else…
I have to echo that sentiment. My understanding is that it was his first job since gaining his class2.
Listening to a radio interview with him, I think that this tragedy will be with him till his dying day.
Juddian:
If you can remember back all those years to when we were green, we got sent out in some right bloody old clobber, i once complained about the brakes snatching left on me first artic a mickey mouse Foden, the fleet engineer took a long drag on his pipe and pronounced in broad Norfolk…‘that’s quite normal for this type of vehicle’'…which i knew then and we all know was complete ■■■■■■■■ and was eventually cured by fitting new brake shoes, but as a greenhorn i was in no position to argue, just as this young lad was in no position to judge the braking performance of his lorry until he’d got a few thousand successful miles under his belt.The first few months are a dangerous time, and employers need to make sure everything is as up to scratch as it can be for inexperienced new drivers.
A properly trained driver, taught from the first time they ventured into a lorry to forget that brakes to slow gears to go cobblers they learned whilst learning to drive a small 1 ton car, might have resulted in a different scenario from the tragedy, but the young driver couldn’t possibly know that, indeed at some blue chip type operations he might well have failed an assessment had he driven old school utilising gears and engine/exhaust braking continually in order to save wear and excess heat on the brakes, so the whole system of training and ongoing lorry use is unfit in this aspect, that’s an old fashioned view maybe but one i know is shared by many experienced drivers here…i wonder how many have wondered since this happened the same as i have, in that had an experienced hand been at the wheel that day, starting at the top of the hill in an appropriate gear and only using the brakes minimally just to prevent overrevving, that the day could have been saved.
Course the lorry should have had a working exhaust brake too, but again the young lad couldn’t possibly know how much difference it would make, and ironically unless driven old school, low gear high revs for max retardation, the exhauster would make little more effort than a pleasant noise in a high gear relying on brakes alone.A tragedy all round, whatever the outcome for the operator and mechanic, i too am satisfied that the young driver had to be found not guilty, let down by a driver training system and operator both deficient.
blimey juddian, what a small world, I too had a run in with that pipe smoking plonker, lol I used to be a fitter at that company and one day he gave me a bollocking because I had fitted new brake shafts to one of their Leyland badgers, he told me from now on and I quote, pretend you work in the desert and cant get spares, so bodge things up to make them work . I started working for the banana bunch the next day.
rambo19:
I’m a bus driver.Our defect cards have a list of things to check on the front, and on the back is where you record any defects.
99% of drivers write ‘none’ on the back.
I write ‘none found’, if there are no defects.VOSA told me that they haul you over the coals if the defect is ‘driver detectable’.
Yup, that’s what they told me…
This is the concept I think needs to be looked at more carefully, as this case seems to have done as an outcome:
“If it takes an MOT-Check to find the fault - then the driver cannot be reasonably expected to find that fault.”
(Wheel nuts at wrong torque, tyre a few nM below legal tread levels, or cracks you need a special engineer’s kit to even see)
“If it is something you can see with a walk around and a torch - then that’s then and only then the driver’s responsibility to pick up.”
(like a bulging tyre, missing wheel nut, or cracks in the main infrastructure)
One also has to consider that the presence of passengers in the cab might have been along the lines of “Your vehicle isn’t roadworthy pal, but rather than fix it ourselves - we’ll supervise you driving it, and you’ll then be legal if you get pulled”. No you bloody won’t! There are no permits to do an illegal thing to start with.
In my mind, the driver was deliberately put in harm’s way as a “fall guy firebreak” to take the rap if anything went seriously wrong, which of course it did. 
Buckstones:
Carryfast:
shep532:
I think the current training and testing regime simply is not good enough.But to comment on What Juddian has posted - the current driving style taught would be OK
I think you’ve contradicted yourself.Like mine I’m sure that Juddian’s point is the training regime having removed the idea of using gears and thereby engine braking to slow at all times to minimise brake temperatures and maximise reserve heat capacity.All historically based on flawed brakes to slow gears to go block change downshifts police car driving practice which has the potential to cook car brakes let alone heavy truck ones.Bearing in mind that I’ve posted elsewhere evidence taken from Commercial Motor archives going back to 1968 of said police driving instruction method being suggested then for use with trucks.All seemingly based on the idea that drivers don’t have the ability to match road and engine speeds correctly during downshifts,so instead let’s rely on the brakes and just put it into the gear we’ll need to drive away with when we’ve slowed it down on the brakes to the required speed.
A few years back local cops/fire service/ambulance were having a ‘meet the public’ at a classic vehicle show: one of the traffic cops remarked that on a fast response on local up and down Pennine roads, the Volvo estates ‘cooked the brakes’, which the BMW’s didn’t.
Which, as suggested, indicates that g-t-g/b-t-s is not ideal even for some cars.
I know what Carryfast is saying but from what I read on here big firms want to see the gears to go brakes to slow style as they are so obsessed with fuel economy.
I tend to use the very good Volvo engine brake to scrub my speed then foot brake to to the slow stop which obviously saves brakes.
On our telematics I was coming up for over revving even though it’s not using fuel.
Thankfully my boss is a driver and knows what I was doing and my lack of reclines proves it but I can imagine some oil behind a desk at a blue chip mob would be having kittens as the graph looks not like the computer says it should
Wasn’t the driver 3rd cousin of boss or so i heard on Jeremy vine (stand to be corrected). And because of fleet board we are being encouraged to use gears and retarder (or continuous brakes as Mercedes call it) rather then brakes
Harry Monk:
truckman020:
don’t understand how the driver was cleared on the charges though,he must have done his checks in the morning but apparently said to the court he had no idea of the condition of the truck,still if he has a conscience he will have to live with the deaths for the rest of his life,and that ain’t a nice thoughtYou can’t assess the condition of the braking system on a walkaround check. I am sure that the incident will haunt him for the rest of his life but I don’t think he had culpability for the incident and I think the jury delivered exactly the right verdict in all three cases.
I take back what I said,i realised I was wrong as soon as I posted,unfortunately there is no way to delete [or is there]far as I know only the mods can delete posts [so if you are watching moderators, I would appreciate it,cheers]
The irony of makers spending serious money designing efficient auxilliary retarders of all descriptions, only for our training system to push bts-gtg and not encouraging making use of what’s there is heavy indeed.
Our new spyware kept flagging up overrevs under exhaust braking, the trainer responsible is quite happy to adjust the settings on the system on his computer to suit the higher revs involved, but you have to let him know cos he hasn’t got a crystal ball wedged up his arse any more than we have and we have several makes and models with different maximum engine speeds.
Apparently i’m in the very good boys club 
for overall scoring on the system, that can only be due to maximising auxilliary and minimising service brake use, i know i’m a bad boy (deliberately warm up and cool down as appropriate and have no intention of changing) when it comes to idling so something must be cancelling that out.
kr79:
I know what Carryfast is saying but from what I read on here big firms want to see the gears to go brakes to slow style as they are so obsessed with fuel economy.
I tend to use the very good Volvo engine brake to scrub my speed then foot brake to to the slow stop which obviously saves brakes.
On our telematics I was coming up for over revving even though it’s not using fuel.
Thankfully my boss is a driver and knows what I was doing and my lack of reclines proves it but I can imagine some oil behind a desk at a blue chip mob would be having kittens as the graph looks not like the computer says it should
That seems like as good an explanation as any kr.In that a false premise which started along the lines of it’s better to wear out brakes than supposedly drive lines.Has now turned into the equally false premise that an engine is using more fuel at high revs and no load than it is at idle. 
Having said that would it be correct to say that the I shift for one uses the more or less sequential downshift gears to slow method just as an old school driver would ?.
[quote=“boycie49”
blimey juddian, what a small world, I too had a run in with that pipe smoking plonker, lol I used to be a fitter at that company and one day he gave me a bollocking because I had fitted new brake shafts to one of their Leyland badgers, he told me from now on and I quote, pretend you work in the desert and cant get spares, so bodge things up to make them work . I started working for the banana bunch the next day.[/quote]
Hello mate, i had a feeling you’d know the way he spoke, and the content, anywhere 
I’ve tried to send you a PM, but not sure if you have PM’s turned on, or, which is more likely, i’ve cocked it all up and sent the bugger to someone else.
Carryfast:
shep532:
I think the current training and testing regime simply is not good enough.But to comment on What Juddian has posted - the current driving style taught would be OK
I think you’ve contradicted yourself.Like mine I’m sure that Juddian’s point is the training regime having removed the idea of using gears and thereby engine braking to slow at all times to minimise brake temperatures and maximise reserve heat capacity.All historically based on flawed brakes to slow gears to go block change downshifts police car driving practice which has the potential to cook car brakes let alone heavy truck ones.Bearing in mind that I’ve posted elsewhere evidence taken from Commercial Motor archives going back to 1968 of said police driving instruction method being suggested then for use with trucks.All seemingly based on the idea that drivers don’t have the ability to match road and engine speeds correctly during downshifts,so instead let’s rely on the brakes and just put it into the gear we’ll need to drive away with when we’ve slowed it down on the brakes to the required speed.
I don’t think I have contradicted myself.
I completely agree with the driving method of using the gearbox for engine and exhaust braking when required - however I am also able to acknowledge that in a modern well maintained vehicle and in most normal driving circumstances the current method taught is suitable. It wouldn’t have been many years ago.
In this tipper case, had the brakes have been correctly maintained and adjusted etc he’d not have had the problem to the degree he did - then had he been taught correctly he’d have been going down the hill mainly on the gears - not brakes.
I do think some people kiss the point that brakes are much improved in design and brake materials.
It all comes down to training and then experience. My local training provider does cover all methods so maybe it’s only some that don’t. But, drivers do need to be taught when and where to use which method
Yes brakes are superb compared to what they were, they don’t overheat under normal use, they don’t lock the drive axle and try to jack knife you, they don’t lock the trailer solid sending it slewing across the road in a cloud of tyre smoke.
They are simply brilliant compared to most of the old stuff (with notable exceptions, such as nothing outbraked a Constructor and a ■■■■■■ motorcyclist on the B road between Newport Pagnell and Northampton lived one day who if he’s still in one piece would testify to this), but when it requires some old school driving is on constant hill work, and most especially when something goes wrong, cos the best brakes in the world aint the best brakes all of a sudden when a pipe bursts or a valve sticks or one of many other things that can go wrong.
This leads on to use and skills, as most of us know its NBG trying to learn to control a lorry properly when there’s 2" of hard packed snow turning to black ice under the wheels, similarly when you find yourself climbing a slippery 1:8 hill its too bloody late trying to learn to drive the auto gearbox in manual mode when its likely the autobox in auto isn’t going to cope with the rapid deceleration as the hill steepens leading to a stall situation.
Well the same applies to learning all aspects of lorry control, the new driver should be encouraged, from day one, to learn their trade and learn their vehicle and its weaknesses and strengths, because a properly driven lorry utilising engine/exhaust braking primarily and with cool brakes half way down a steep hill is a sight better bet than one where the brakes are nearly glowing red should something fail or an emergency halt be called for.
dib dib dib and all that, its things like this that separate lorry drivers from steering wheel operatives.
one other aspect, its professional, the vehicle is usually supplied with well engineered auxilliary braking, if used well a set of linings and discs can last several years not 3 or 6 months.
shep532:
Carryfast:
shep532:
I think the current training and testing regime simply is not good enough.But to comment on What Juddian has posted - the current driving style taught would be OK
I think you’ve contradicted yourself.Like mine I’m sure that Juddian’s point is the training regime having removed the idea of using gears and thereby engine braking to slow at all times to minimise brake temperatures and maximise reserve heat capacity.All historically based on flawed brakes to slow gears to go block change downshifts police car driving practice which has the potential to cook car brakes let alone heavy truck ones.Bearing in mind that I’ve posted elsewhere evidence taken from Commercial Motor archives going back to 1968 of said police driving instruction method being suggested then for use with trucks.All seemingly based on the idea that drivers don’t have the ability to match road and engine speeds correctly during downshifts,so instead let’s rely on the brakes and just put it into the gear we’ll need to drive away with when we’ve slowed it down on the brakes to the required speed.
I don’t think I have contradicted myself.
I completely agree with the driving method of using the gearbox for engine and exhaust braking when required - however I am also able to acknowledge that in a modern well maintained vehicle and in most normal driving circumstances the current method taught is suitable. It wouldn’t have been many years ago.
In this tipper case, had the brakes have been correctly maintained and adjusted etc he’d not have had the problem to the degree he did - then had he been taught correctly he’d have been going down the hill mainly on the gears - not brakes.
I do think some people kiss the point that brakes are much improved in design and brake materials.
It all comes down to training and then experience. My local training provider does cover all methods so maybe it’s only some that don’t. But, drivers do need to be taught when and where to use which method
The vehicle involved had drums all round, it wouldn’t have been the sharpest straight from the factory. I’m not 100% convinced the accident would not have happened if he’d been given the truck immediately after its last MOT when brake efficiency was calculated at just over 50%.
From the VOSA investigation they originally said they made the efficiency 35% then, after input from the technical expert retained by the driver’s defence team changed their mind to 28% - incidentally after the VOSA examiner put in a very poor performance under cross examination the day before.
My problem is, due to their failure to also measure the temperature of the brakes on each axle, in the aftermath of the crash, I have very little faith that the brakes were as bad as they attempted, and clearly as far as the jury, who are not technically familiar with truck braking systems, were concerned successfully managed to portray.
I don’t have confidence they, for instance, sanded the heat glaze from the friction material and also if, as witnesses state, black smoke was pouring from the brakes this means quite a substantial amount of friction material will be being lost in the process. Therefore the slack adjusters would need to be adjusted up, to some degree, to allow for this. It also seemed a happy coincidence that the worst performing brakes they found, in the investigation, happened to be found on the axle that was totally ripped off the truck in the crash.
My suspicion is the braking efficiency may have been over 40% or more in reality so there is no reason why most drivers would not have been able to descend the hill safely. The VOSA examiner even admitted that 1 in 10 vehicles they pull at the roadside would have brakes in a similarly bad condition but they aren’t constantly crashing down hills. It is a thankfully rare occurrence.
Buckstones:
Carryfast:
shep532:
I think the current training and testing regime simply is not good enough.But to comment on What Juddian has posted - the current driving style taught would be OK
I think you’ve contradicted yourself.Like mine I’m sure that Juddian’s point is the training regime having removed the idea of using gears and thereby engine braking to slow at all times to minimise brake temperatures and maximise reserve heat capacity.All historically based on flawed brakes to slow gears to go block change downshifts police car driving practice which has the potential to cook car brakes let alone heavy truck ones.Bearing in mind that I’ve posted elsewhere evidence taken from Commercial Motor archives going back to 1968 of said police driving instruction method being suggested then for use with trucks.All seemingly based on the idea that drivers don’t have the ability to match road and engine speeds correctly during downshifts,so instead let’s rely on the brakes and just put it into the gear we’ll need to drive away with when we’ve slowed it down on the brakes to the required speed.
A few years back local cops/fire service/ambulance were having a ‘meet the public’ at a classic vehicle show: one of the traffic cops remarked that on a fast response on local up and down Pennine roads, the Volvo estates ‘cooked the brakes’, which the BMW’s didn’t.
Which, as suggested, indicates that g-t-g/b-t-s is not ideal even for some cars.
Yes, the roadcraft book casts a long shadow it’s like it’s written by some god and can never be questioned. IAM bores like to drone on about the sanctity of it incessantly. I don’t agree with the theory that using engine braking on a 2WD vehicle risks unbalancing the vehicle it’s like they’re unaware equal brake forces aren’t applied to both axles of a car in any case.
not sure if these pictures have been posted apoligiesz if they have
Carryfast:
kr79:
I know what Carryfast is saying but from what I read on here big firms want to see the gears to go brakes to slow style as they are so obsessed with fuel economy.
I tend to use the very good Volvo engine brake to scrub my speed then foot brake to to the slow stop which obviously saves brakes.
On our telematics I was coming up for over revving even though it’s not using fuel.
Thankfully my boss is a driver and knows what I was doing and my lack of reclines proves it but I can imagine some oil behind a desk at a blue chip mob would be having kittens as the graph looks not like the computer says it shouldThat seems like as good an explanation as any kr.In that a false premise which started along the lines of it’s better to wear out brakes than supposedly drive lines.Has now turned into the equally false premise that an engine is using more fuel at high revs and no load than it is at idle.
Having said that would it be correct to say that the I shift for one uses the more or less sequential downshift gears to slow method just as an old school driver would ?.
I shift and veb knocks down 3 at a time on full power and will to be fair throw you out the s at when you lift off I put it on full Powerade I come off slip roads and just feather the pedal to stop.
After almost two years of lots of urban driving my brakes are at 80% and
Own Account Driver:
The vehicle involved had drums all round, it wouldn’t have been the sharpest straight from the factory. I’m not 100% convinced the accident would not have happened if he’d been given the truck immediately after its last MOT when brake efficiency was calculated at just over 50%.From the VOSA investigation they originally said they made the efficiency 35% then, after input from the technical expert retained by the driver’s defence team changed their mind to 28% - incidentally after the VOSA examiner put in a very poor performance under cross examination the day before.
My problem is, due to their failure to also measure the temperature of the brakes on each axle, in the aftermath of the crash, I have very little faith that the brakes were as bad as they attempted, and clearly as far as the jury, who are not technically familiar with truck braking systems, were concerned successfully managed to portray.
I don’t have confidence they, for instance, sanded the heat glaze from the friction material and also if, as witnesses state, black smoke was pouring from the brakes this means quite a substantial amount of friction material will be being lost in the process. Therefore the slack adjusters would need to be adjusted up, to some degree, to allow for this. It also seemed a happy coincidence that the worst performing brakes they found, in the investigation, happened to be found on the axle that was totally ripped off the truck in the crash.
My suspicion is the braking efficiency may have been over 40% or more in reality so there is no reason why most drivers would not have been able to descend the hill safely. The VOSA examiner even admitted that 1 in 10 vehicles they pull at the roadside would have brakes in a similarly bad condition but they aren’t constantly crashing down hills. It is a thankfully rare occurrence.
I really don’t follow how there can be an argument over how efficient the brakes were between these two experts. The efficiency is calculated by dividing the total braking force by the gross vehicle weight and then multiplying the answer by 100 to obtain a percentage. So assuming the GVW is 32000kg the total braking force produced was either 8960kg or 11200kg, with a pass requiring 16000kg. Those figures discount what is known as Front Wheel Allowance, (which is a theoretical assumption of what effort in KGs would be produced by each front wheel brake owing to weight transfer if the vehicle was moving). FWA is only credited if the front wheel brake locks up, which from the rest of the evidenc given seems unlikely for this vehicle. The computerised roller brake testing machine calculates this automatically and records whether a wheel locks. The necessary input information to do this manually is available to every VoSA tester.
So either wheels locked or they didn’t and the braking force was recorded on the print out from the RBT machine. There shouldn’t have been anything to argue about.
I realise many reading won’t be interested in this or (apologies) for some it may go over the top of thier heads… as no doubt was the case with the jury.