Fixed fines chaos imminent
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• Controversy over the imminent fixed-penalty system for overloading has been further fuelled by recent newspaper reports that vehicles overloaded by 5% will not attract prosecution.
The Guardian has suggested that a confidential guideline issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) indicates that no action should be taken against vehicles overloaded by up to 5%, and that vehicles overloaded between 5-10% should be treated with a £12 fixed fine.
ACK) has so far declined to say if it has issued guidelines on how fixed penalties should be applied. However, ACE0 traffic committee secretary John Over says a sliding scale of charges will not be suitable.
Now the environmental pressure group Transport 2000 has written to Transport Secretary John Moore asking: "If Britain must withstand pressure for 40-tonne vehicles, because roads and bridges are not strong enough, how can such piffling fines be justified for illegally putting even heavier lorries on the same roads and bridges?"
Transport 2000 executive director Susan Hoyle says that repairs to Britain's motorways and trunk roads are the result of HGVs. "Overweight lorries disproportionately contribute to the damage. The extraordinary logic of the decision to recommend that the police impose such a derisory £12 fine for overloading can only bring the law into disrepute.
"l'he minute fine coupled with the great unlikelihood of getting caught means that few hauliers will see any sense in obeying the law," says Hoyle.
Uncertainty on how fixed penalties will be applied to overloading also prompted complaints from both the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the Local Authority Coordinating Body on Trading Standards (LACOTS).
LACOT'S chief executive Jim Humble has written to the Home Office asking for confirmation of the reported police guidelines. He says that overloaded lorries will have serious implications for road safety and highway authorities. The AMA is also pressing Junior Transport Minister Peter Bottomley for assurances that steps are not being taken to circumvent the wishes of central and local government. "The law is quite clear, and the AMA has worked long and hard to ensure that the Traffic Commissioners do not turn a blind eye to juggernauts weighing between 38-40 tonnes", it says.
Only police officers will have the option of applying fixed penalties for overloading — Trading Standards officers will continue to prosecute overloaded vehicles through magistrates courts.
However, the Freight Transport Association has hit back at suggestions that operators will get off lightly for overloading offences. FTA planning and traffic services manager Don McIntyre claims that recent newspaper reports on overloading and fixed penalties are the result of "scaremongering by Trading Standards officials". McIntyre says that the FTA would not welcome any reductions in fines. "If people overload dangerously then they deserve to be prosecuted.'' The FTA fully expects the police to continue exercising their discretion when deciding whether to prosecute a driver or issue a fixed penalty. It says that there is no question of haulage companies getting off lightly with a fixed penalty from October "where a company causes or permits a vehicle to overload, the law doesn't allow the issue of a fixed penalty — a prosecution is required".