A tyre blowout on a manganese truck nearly killed another motorist on the Cradock road on Thursday when the tyre flew off and slammed into the front grill of his car as they were passing each other.
The incident has highlighted the traffic dangers on the N10, which has become increasingly congested with manganese ore trucks — and the use of tyre retreads and lack of maintenance that appears to characterise many of the huge haulage vehicles.
Nelson Mandela Bay businessman Luan Schutte said he was on his way up to Middelburg on Thursday afternoon at about 4pm to see his girlfriend, when the incident occurred.
“I was about 40km the other side of Paterson and this manganese truck was coming in the other direction, travelling about 120km/h down this long hill towards me.
“As he passed me, one of his nearside tyres sprang off and hit my car, cutting right into the radiator.
“If it had been half a metre higher, I would have been dead.
“The truck just kept going.”
Schutte managed to pull over to the side of the road with the tyre still embedded in the front grill of his BMW, hardly able to believe what had happened.
“It happened so fast, I had no time to dodge it.
“A guy who had been driving behind the truck pulled over to see if I was all right and then raced after the truck.
“He managed to catch up to the guy and got him to pull over.
“Then he took photographs of where the tyre had come off and got the driver’s contact details and the name of his company, and brought them back to me.”
Schutte said this good Samaritan was the owner of a truck company himself, and he had pointed out that big truck and trailer rigs had sensor systems linked to their tyres.
“So the driver would have known immediately when he lost one and even before when he lost pressure.
“It must have been flat for quite a while for it to disintegrate like the photo of the rim shows.
“It seems these manganese haulers also often use ‘recap’ tyres, like retreads, which is why this happened to me, and why the roadside all the way along the N10 is littered with tyres that have blown out.
“The road has become really dangerous. It used to be that motorists had to watch out for kudus in the Karoo — now it’s flying tyres.”
He said he had waited for four hours on the side of the road for the tow truck to arrive, and instead of going through to his girlfriend, he had to return to Gqeberha with the tow truck driver.
“While I was waiting, the driver of the truck did in fact return with another guy from his company.
“He apologised and said he had intended to stop but that it was too dangerous at that point.
“I’ve since put through the details of the driver and his company to my insurer to ensure they cover my repairs.”
He did not want to name the company.
“I just want to raise awareness about the dangers on this road, and that something must be done to give these manganese truck drivers more training, and compel them to maintain their vehicles properly — and to fit new tyres, not recaps.”
Bay manganese industry watchdog Emile Hallaby said the manganese truck traffic on the N10 was a big problem.
“Use of recaps in itself is not a problem in my view.
“But a number of accidents have centred on poor maintenance and reckless driving, and we need the authorities to urgently clamp down on those two things.”
Bay manganese ore handler Kalahari Autoforce co-owner Johan Kruger said many truck accidents happened due to poor maintenance, and this was often related to unbranded haulers which sought to cut costs and avoid responsibility.
“However, in the long run, the better your trucks are maintained, the more sustainable your operation will be.”
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