Do You Check Your Nuts? (A cautionary tale)
Posted By Judith on 16th October 2015
Earlier in the week we sold our small kitchen table on EBay. It had served us well but was now surplus to requirements following the moving round of furniture on the arrival of the ‘wake’ table.
The gentleman who bought it lived in a village near Lincoln and said he would come for the table around 4.45pm. At 4.30pm we got a call saying he would be delayed as he had a puncture.
When he arrived he explained he hadn’t actually had a puncture, but had lost the whole near-side rear wheel. It seems he was driving along when the wheel detached itself and over-took him accompanied by alarming noises from the rear of his vehicle.
Both he and the errant wheel ended up in a hedge. Fortunately he wasn’t hurt, just a little shaken as well you might be. It could have been a whole lot worse.
It turns out that 2 weeks previously he had some work done on the van to get it through it’s M.O.T. This involved removing said wheel, which obviously wasn’t put back properly.
So for 2 weeks the wheel nuts had been gradually undoing themselves until finally, on his way to Binbrook, they parted company and the wheel fell off!
I’ve always known that you were supposed to check your wheel nuts after tyre change or service, but does anyone actually do it? I’ve been driving over 40 years and I never have. We place a huge amount of trust, indeed our lives, in the hands of complete strangers.
So next time you have work done on your wheels, perhaps you should remember to check your nuts!
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