Benton licence curtailed
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• A black mark would remain on Benton Bros (Transport)'s record following the premature termination of its licence because of overloading offences.
Humphrey Lewis, Eastern Deputy Licensing Authority, made this plain at a Nottingham public inquiry. He cut the duration of the company's licence, which authorises 30 vehicles and 105 trailers, so that it now expires in April 1990 instead of in 1992. The company had received a warning letter about overloading when its licence was renewed in June 1987.
In February it had been convicted of four overloading offences, involving three vehicles, before the Sleaford Magistrates, and the DLA was told that there were two pending prosecutions to come in the Warrington area.
For the company, Ian Rothera said it had seriously taken note of the warning letter and all reasonable steps had been taken to prevent the repetition of such offences. Nearly all the work had been for one shipping agent carrying import and export traffic through Boston docks. The Sleaford offences all related to weight distribution and the weighbridge at Boston docks did not have a facility for checking individual axles. That weighbridge was now used regularly to check the total weight being carried. If a sealed container was found to be overweight, the company would refuse to move it unless given authority to break the seals and remove the excess.
Rothera said that as far as the pending prosecutions were concerned, the company had been caught out by a complete lack of care on the part of those who had loaded the vehicles. Telex instructions had been received detailing the weights to be carried. Those weights had been confirmed by tickets given to the drivers, yet when the vehicles had been stopped subsequently, one had been found to be two to three tonnes in excess of its permitted train weight and the other 5.5 to six tonnes in excess.
As a consequence, the agents had been informed that the company no longer wished to carry for that firm.
The company's vehicles had to pass the Sleaford dynamic axle weigher every day, said Rothera, and on average 10 to 12 of its vehicles were checked every week. For the longterm, the replacement programme was designed to give a
fleet of three-wded tractors and three-axled semi-trailers. All new vehicles were being flu ted with air suspension, which gave a more even distribution of weight over the axles, and allowed a 5% increase in the plated weights of each axle.
Cutting the duration of the licence, Lewis said whatever the reason and excuses for th( offences, they had put the business in jeopardy. The corn pany would have to take ever) step to ensure that there would be no more convictions, because if it were to appear before him again, he would not be deterred from taking the path he perhaps ought to have taken on this occasion.
At first sight he had felt tha it had been a case where a curtailment of the number of vehicles on the licence would have been justified.