Heavy haulier wins his costs
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• Teesside magistrates have dismissed charges against North Yorkshire heavy hauliers GCS Johnson (Skeeby) and ordered the defence costs to be paid out of public funds.
Johnson had been accused of using a Special Types vehicle last December when the permitted weight and width were exceeded, and without plating and testing certificates.
The prosecution said the outfit had been seen by two police officers who believed that the tracked excavator being carried weighed 19.7 tonnes and was light enough to be carried on a conventional vehicle operating under the Construction & Use Regulations. When check weighed the train weight came out at just over 47 tonnes.
Questioned by Jonathan Lawton, defending, neither officer was able to say what sort of conventional vehicle they felt would have been appropriate, though they maintained that they had seen excavators of the same type carried on conventional vehicles.
Managing director Geoffrey Johnson said he had been involved with Special Types operations for 30 years and held a Class 1 LGV licence. The movement concerned had been properly notified. In his experience it was safer to move machines of this type on Special Types outfits.
If the police had seen similar machines on conventional vehicles, he told the court, those vehicles would undoubtedly have been overloaded.