More than a year and a half after the event took place, Carlisle Magistrates’ Court has heard the case of a worker injury at the nearby Pirelli plant. The case was brought to court by the Health and Safety Executive, which prosecuted Pirelli Tyres Ltd after an investigation found that the safety procedures for carrying out maintenance work on the machine were poor.
Thousands of motorists are driving potentially dangerous cars as the number of vehicles on the road that have previously been written off increases. The National Association of Bodyshops (NAB) has previously called on the Competition Commission to review their position on write-offs during an investigation into the private motor insurance market.
However the Competition Commission say that they have no plans to review this further stating that despite the evidence they received during the investigation, they judged that write-offs were an issue relating to the supply of used cars and not related to the provision of Private Motor Insurance and related goods and services.
The Road Haulage Association is disappointed at the refusal by the Office of Fair Trading to consider an investigation into the issue of UK oil pricing. Such was the strength of feeling over high fuel prices that over 32,000 signatories, including FFUK supporters, members of the public and members of Parliament, added their names to the petition that was handed in to the offices of the OFT on Monday, 15 July.
Oman’s official news agency reports that the country’s Public Authority for Consumer Protection (PACP) has taken action against an establishment that regrooved end of life passenger car tyres and sold them to consumers as semi-new. In a statement, PACP chairman Dr. Said bin Khamis al-Ka'abi shared that a number of businesses, with links to “some expats”, have sold tyres unfit for use as semi-new; he referred to this as a “serious crime” that has “negative dimensions and effects on the safety of consumers.”
An inquest that opened at Woking Civic Offices yesterday adds substantial weight to the argument for tyre aging laws. The inquest into the crash of a 52-seat coach last September, which claimed three lives, has heard the coach lost control and left the road following the failure of a its front nearside tyre – a tyre manufactured more than 19 years earlier.
Kwik-Fit has once again found itself at the centre of unwanted attention after a BBC consumer programme accused it of recommending work that didn’t need to be done and of failing to properly carry out free tyre safety checks. On 10 July, the “Your Money, Their Tricks” programme mystery shopped 10 Kwik-Fit branches with 10 different cars. The cars, which were of various ages and models, had been pre-inspected by a forensic engineer and had been prepared in order to demonstrate whether checks had been carried out. Similar allegations were made by the BBC’s “Watchdog” programme in September 2010. But this time it was rather tackily presented, as the title of the programme and the in-show caricatures demonstrate.
The Health and Safety Executive has prosecuted and fined tyre collection and recycling company Saltire Recovery Ltd following an incident at the company’s Burton-on-Trent facility last July. Saltire Recovery pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 by failing to protect its employees, and was fined £8,000 and ordered to pay costs of £4,722.
The Road Haulage Association delighted to learn that a formal investigation into the issue of oil price fixing is finally under way. Commenting, RHA Chief Executive Geoff Dunning: "Since the original fuel protests way back in 2000, we have been of the opinion that there should be far more transparency among the oil companies. Yet every time we raised the issue our concerns were dismissed out of hand.
A fitter killed in a tyre explosion in 2006 died an “accidental death”, according to the jury at an inquest into the incident. Matthew Hoare was 21 when the earthmover tyre he was repairing blew up, throwing him 15ft into a metal wall and killing him instantly.
Lurid local newspaper headlines have rekindled media interest in the industrial incident that resulted in the death of a man at Pirelli’s Carlisle tyre factory. However, with the Police having already confirmed that they are no longer pursuing a criminal investigation, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation ongoing and with no date for the inquest, there is little more to report and no further comment from the parties involved.
Criminal activity has been ruled out in the investigation into the death of Pirelli employee George Falder. Tests show that the 48-year old employee at the tyre maker’s Carlisle factory was not assaulted before he died inside one of the plant’s autoclaves.
Following reports of a death at Pirelli’s Carlisle passenger car and 4×4 tyre production facility, the manufacturer has issued a statement confirming that a worker had been found dead in the factory. It also communicated how the company is “deeply saddened” to announce the news of the fatality and confirms that work at the factory has been suspended to “facilitate the investigation.”
Following the broadcast of a Panorama programme on Monday evening, which questioned the way Halfords Autocentres’ staff communicated tyre disposal fees, the garage chain has released the full statement quoted in the documentary.
Selby Magistrates Court has doled out a 12 month prison sentence to Paul Ketteridge from Leeds for the illegal dumping of thousands of tyres at a Yorkshire airfield and other locations. Ketteridge admitted to two waste offences in relation to Tockwith Airfield, and was found guilty after a trial on a charge relating to fly tipping at Goodmanham near Market Weighton. He also admitted three further waste offences in relation to thousands of tyres dumped in Bramham. At the same hearing, Eco Terra Tyres Ltd of Dringthorpe also admitted four waste charges relating to tyres at Tockwith airfield, and was fined £400 in total. The magistrates accepted the company had no assets.
Michelin will voluntarily recall more than 77,000 commercial vehicle tyres in North America. In a statement published on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s safercar.gov website, Michelin North America says that it is recalling certain Michelin XZU3 LRJ, size 305/85R22.5, XZU2 LRJ, size 12R22.5, tyres produced between 23 October 2005 and 3 September 2011; and XM505 LRJ, size 305/85R22.5, produced between 18 April 2010 and 8 May 2010, and between 23 January 2011 and 12 February 2011. These tyres, Michelin reports, have a casing that “may experience a loss of integrity and, in some cases, have rapid air loss.”
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