Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Mother Acts Over Trailer Death



Grieving mother calls for reform

The mother of a four-year-old boy from Derbyshire who died after he was hit by a runaway trailer is calling for MOT-type testing of all trailers.

Finlay Martin died in July 2007 from injuries sustained in the accident in Heage.

The Department for Transport has commissioned some research into the number of accidents involving trailers.

But it said there would be significant difficulties with MOT-type testing of light trailers.

Finlay was killed by a trailer which had become detached from the car towing it.

The driver was prosecuted for its condition.

Zoe Martin, who organised a petition calling for reform, said: "If that trailer had been tested Finlay would be here today because that trailer would not have been on the road because it was so defective."

In a statement the Department for Transport said: "It is not clear that the introduction of a requirement to retrofit breakaway cables or secondary couplings to older, lighter, trailers would necessarily have the benefits suggested in the petition.

"Equally, the fact that there is no statutory or comprehensive national record of when any light trailer was built or to whom it belongs means there would be significant difficulties with MOT-testing light trailers."


1 comment:

Tony’s-Towing-Trivia said...

Sentencing for offences such as this are nowhere near sufficient, but a LOT of re-educating is required.

It takes a combination of 2 errors for this to happen, 1. The coupling is not located on the towball correctly (or in the case of a towing jaw, the pintle isn’t correctly secured) and 2. The breakaway cable is either incorrectly fed, or not in a suitable condition to do it’s job.

I meet more resistance from users on this subject than any other. They always have an “excuse” as to why the breakaway cable isn’t correctly located.

MAKE NO MISTAKE, LIVES ARE AT RISK!!

https://spinner28.wixsite.com/tonys-towing-trivia/post/the-importance-of-breakaway-cables