Overwidth, not unsafe
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• Because a vehicle operating under the Special Types provisions moved too soon, Lancashire heavy haulier J B Rawcliffe & Son was ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £760 when it was convicted of using an over-width vehicle by the Croydon magistrates. The company was cleared of using a vehicle with a dangerous load.
Evidence was given by a police officer that he had seen an articulated outfit belonging to the company carrying a large tracked crane at 19;40hrs. The streets were busy and the vehicle was causing considerable problems. The notice of movement and permit showed that the vehicle should not have moved before midnight. He agreed that the notice indicated that the load did not require a police escort. When he measured the outfit, he found it to be 3.86m wide.
Defending, Jonathan Lawton said that the dangerous-load complaint had been made under Regulation 100(2), namely, that it was not so secured that neither danger nor nuisance was likely to be caused to any person or property by reason of the load or any part of it falling or being blown from the vehicle; or by reason of any other movement of the load or part of it. There had been no evidence of any sort, however. that the load was insecure.
As far as the movement itself was concerned, the permit was ambiguous as to whether or not movement could start before midnight. Two permiss able times were given, which seemed to be contradictory.
After the prosecution had maintained there was evidence that the vehicle had been causing a major obstruction, Lawton said that that was not the offence with which the company was charged.
The driver of the vehicle, Ian Formby, faced similar charges and was fined £150 for using an over-width vehicle.