In the Summer of 2021, Lincolnshire farmer Simon Richardson suffered a wheel detachment on his combine harvester.
Simon said that the wheel detachment caused serious damage to the combine’s exterior including the steps, windscreen, panelling and paint.
Alongside this, the wheel had actually bounced up and into the harvester’s windscreen, smashing through the panel and rendering the harvester immovable.
On top of the £4,800 repair costs incurred from the incident, the combine was unusable for 10 days causing Simon to lose valuable time and in turn money, during peak harvesting season.
Upon reflection of the incident, Simon recognised how fortunate it was that no one was injured, but the scare had compelled him to search for preventative measures going forward.
As a direct consequence of his wheel detachment, Simon fit Checkpoint wheel nut indicators to the harvester and all of his farm vehicles, making for a cost-effective solution for Simon to monitor wheel safety on his vehicles.
Placed in an easily recognisable pattern, such as point to point, Simon is now able to identify any unwanted wheel nut movement at a glance and rectify it before it can cause any problems.
Agricultural vehicle wheel safety
As with many other sectors, the Agricultural sector is beset by problems arising from loose wheel nuts in exactly the same manner as other sectors. These vehicles have the same loosening forces exerted upon them, this makes the Checkpoint range of products invaluable to ensure that the wheels of agriculture can continue to turn without issue.
As with any industry, we are aware that there are many different wheel assemblies and configurations within the market, each with different wheel nut sizes, numbers of wheel nuts as well as centre to centre distances or (PCD). Therefore, we have developed a number of different wheel nut indicators and retainers designed to meet these particular requirements.
For more information on the essential role our Checkpoint product range plays in the safety of the Agricultural sector, visit our Agricultural page.