Merseyside Fire and Rescue backs tyre age motion

At a meeting on 6 May, members of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority unanimously voted to support the tyre aging motion that has arisen from the campaign begun by Liverpool woman Frances Molloy following the 2012 death of her son in a coach crash. The motion, titled Coach Safety & Prevention of Road Traffic Accidents, calls for an age limit of six years to be placed on tyres fitted to coaches.

“Unbelievably there is no law in the UK that governs the age of tyres used on either commercial or domestic vehicles despite the fact that a rubber tyre will show serious deterioration after only five years even if no wear and tears shows on the exterior of the tyre,” stated Councillor Dave Hanratty, chair of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority. “The laws surrounding tyres and their age needs to be changed and we, as an Authority, are supporting this campaign to help make roads safer.”

Hanratty commented that the Government “will apparently not commit to a change in the law,” nevertheless, the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority has agreed to write to the Prime Minister, Fire Minister Brandon Lewis MP, the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) and the Local Government Association (LGA) Fire Service Management Committee, asking them to urge the Government to urgently address this issue and legislate that tyres older than six years cannot be used on commercial vehicles. “This will at least go some way in preventing such fatal accidents in the future,” he added.

Frances Molloy’s son Michael was 18 years old when the bus he was travelling home on from a music festival crashed on the A3 in Surrey. He died along with driver Colin Daulby and fellow passenger Kerry Ogden. An inquest found that the tyre that blew out, causing the accident, was 19 years old.