21 September 2009

NOTICE TO THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY

There has been a tragic fatality due to the use of an inferior windscreen.

A truck driver in Limpopo hit a road sign at 30km per hour. His head hit the windscreen and the glass splintered away and cut an artery in his neck. He died in the truck due to severe blood loss. (The name of the company has been withheld as internal investigations are still underway).

The broken windscreen was sent for analysis by Shatterprufe. Although it passed the SANS ball drop test, it significantly failed the pummel test, which means that the adhesion of the glass to the PVB was weak and this caused the glass to flake which in turn resulted in the driver being cut.

It has been assessed from Europe that the vinyl used in this windscreen was from a recycled processor and therefore led to poor adhesion of the glass to the vinyl. Recycled vinyl results in lower raw material input costs but as seen above, severely reduces the adhesive qualities of the vinyl and could result in more incidents mentioned above.

Shatterprufe only uses the very best quality virgin vinyl which ensures high quality adhesion and therefore enhances the safety of the windscreen.

This is the second incident we have had of this nature from a non-Shatterprufe windscreen (not made to OE standards) this year.

Please take note, motorists lives are at stake.

Yours sincerely

M.K GREEN

Managing Director