Fines and costs totalling £724 were imposed on Middlesbrough-based
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Econofreight United Transport and one of its drivers last week, after they were convicted of overloading offences by the Lichfield magistrates.
The company and driver Leslie Taylor had denied gross and second-axle overloads when a Scania 2x3 38-tonne artic, loaded with 17m steel stanchions on an 18.3m trailer, had been check weighed at the Wall dynamic axle weighbridge in July 1987.
Traffic examiner David Worton said the the gross weight of the tractive unit had been 18,540kg, an overload of 1,540kg (9.05%), and the second axle has weighed 12,040kg, an excess of 1,540kg (14.06%). The train weight had totalled 37,580kg.
The driver had said that the vehicle had been loaded at Octavius Atkinson's works at Harrogate.
Questioned by Stephen Kirkbright, defending, Worton said that he had directed the vehicle over the weighbeam, but had not operated the weighbridge himself.
Only part of the till roll which related to the vehicle in question was produced because the rest had been destroyed after 12 months.
Taylor said that the stanchions had been evenly loaded within 50min of the rear of the trailer. He had weighed the vehicle before leaving Atkinson's premises, but had forgotten to collect the weighbridge ticket. He had not told the traffic examiner that he had weighed the vehicle as he had not had the ticket to prove it.
Atkinson's assistant transport manager, Ian Gotts, said his duties included the operation of the company's weighbridge. The practice was to doubleweigh artics because the weighbridge was not physically big enough and, when he had weighed the vehicle before Taylor left the premises, the gross weight had been 16,860kg, and the train weight 37,670kg.