Apparently defective brakes allow a caravan to run away injuring owner's wife.

An old caravan, recently purchased from a dealer, was being manoeuvred backwards by hand into a steep down-hill drive when it ran away, out of control, injuring the owner's wife. The purchasers claimed extensive previous experience with caravans. The purchaser's wife brought a Civil claim against the dealer for personal injury compensation, arguing that the caravan had been sold with inadequate brakes fitted.

Initially, TTAS was provided (by the defendants solicitor) with the various witness statements and photographs of the drive. One of the photographs was taken from the bottom of the drive facing up towards the road showing a dwarf wall that separated the front garden from the drive. The wall was built from standard house bricks. Assuming that the courses of brickwork were level, it was possible to calculate that the gradient of the drive was 20%.

The current requirement for the efficiency of a trailer/caravan parking brake is 18%.

TTAS gave the opinion that the brakes would not have been required by law to hold a caravan stationary on such a gradient.

The braking equipment fitted to the Caravan was identified as the B & B Sigma system. At the time of design and manufacture this was (under the legislation then in force) only required to achieve 16% efficiency in parking mode.

TTAS attended the Court as an agreed Expert Witness.

TTAS sat through the evidence brought by the Prosecution, prompting the Defence Barrister as appropriate with regard to cross examination. Under cross examination it became apparent that the Prosecution "expert" - a Vehicle Examiner - did not have the relevant expertise with regard to trailer brakes in general, nor the Sigma system specifically.

The Court found in favour of the defendant, all costs being awarded against the Plaintiff.

The Judge accepted from the evidence given by TTAS' Technical Consultant that the use of a winch or safety rope was common practice in such circumstances. In the light of their claimed prior experience, he commented that the purchasers were ill-advised to attempt such a manoeuvre without taking appropriate safety precautions.

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