A tipper truck carrying building supplies from a depot to a building site caused the death of a pedestrian walking on the pavement. It appeared that the tipper truck's nearside support leg had not been stowed correctly so that as the truck was being driven the leg swept the pavement area, eventually hitting the back of a pedestrian and causing fatal injuries.

Preliminary investigations suggested no faults with the support leg's locking mechanism, thereby implying that the leg had not been stowed correctly by the driver before he began his journey. Whilst the tipper truck was stationary and the support leg was locked in its stowed position it was noted that the leg could not be moved into an extended position.

However, further investigations revealed a worn and partially defective locking mechanism that, when the vehicle was moving, allowed the support leg to extend outwards if the vehicle was subjected to a sideways force whilst decelerating; such circumstances could occur if the vehicle clipped the nearside kerb during braking.

It transpired that the driver of the tipper truck had correctly stowed and locked the support leg in place before the journey. However, the leg became extended when the truck clipped the kerb during braking whilst passing an oncoming vehicle on a narrow lane. The fatal accident happened shortly afterwards.

ENGINEERING INVESTIGATIONS

Engineering losses are perhaps the most complex to categorise, ranging as they do from road traffic accidents to product liability and from structural failures to electrical malfunction. Examples of recent cases include:

We have chosen a case study involving a complex motor vehicle to illustrate another facet of our investigations.