Weight problem cost driver £25
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A DRIVER check-weighed his vehicle, found it over-weight, but decided that the nearest reasonable point for him to offload the excess was his destination.
As a result, the driver, Mr J. Tyerman, and his employer, T, Cook and Sons (Haulage) Ltd, Kirkbymoorside, were fined £25 each by Clitheroe magistrates last week for exceeding the permitted gross and rearaxle weights of the vehicle.
The magistrates said they were imposing only nominal penalties as they accepted that the driver had honestly believed he was doing the right thing.
For the defendants, Mr John Backhouse said the driver had been hauling round timber from a forest near Bolton Abbey. The vehicle was checkweighed at Skipton, some four miles away, and found to be overweight.
The driver decided that the nearest point at which it was reasonably practicable for him to shed part of his load was at his destination at Chatburn, 24 to 25 miles away.
,He had believed he could not return to the original loading point because it would be closed. In any event, it would have meant going uphill into the forest and it would not have been possible for him to get back in without his vehicle being towed in.
Prosecuting for the Yorkshire .LA, Mr Michael Patterson said the defendant's vehicle had been stopped in a Ministry weight-check. The vehicle was equipped with a crane, and, in his submission, could have easily returned to the forest to remove part of the load.