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Tory motion on overweight penalties
Page 29
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• Heavier penalties for the overloading of goods vehicles are being sought by Mr Maxwell-Hyslop, Tory MP for Tiverton.
In a Commons motion tabled this week he is urging the Secretary for the Environ ment, Mr Geoffrey Rippon, to introduce new penalties for this offence including the suspension of drivers' licences for repeated offences.
Mr Maxwell-Hyslop complained that current treatment of offenders is totally ineffective in deterring overloading.
His main targets are the drivers of Continental container lorries coming to Britain by ferry.
"Every single heavy lorry that the local authority has weighed coming off the new Roseoff ferry between Brittany and Plymouth has been found to be overweight," said the MP.
"These drivers must know when they leave their home depots that their vehicles are overweight. They just take a chance on not getting caught," he said.
Under present arrangements, he continued, penalties were imposed only when a driver refused to unload the excess weight after his vehicle had been weighed. One problem was that the owners of such vehicles were outside the jurisdiction of British courts.
"1 am sure this is the situation at almost all points of entry into this country for foreign commercial vehicles," said Mr Maxwell-Hyslop.
He also wants the provision for the suspension of licences to apply to drivers of British lorries.
"Obviously, in the case of a lorry being loaded with rubble or earth it will be much more difficult for the driver to judge the weight he is taking on board," he said.
"It would be for the magistrates' courts to decide what should be the penalty in individual cases and suspension of licences should only apply to repeated offences.
"But there is no excuse for the driver whose load has been weighed at the commencement of his journey."
Mr Maxwell-Hyslop said he was not canvassing support for his motion but, since overloaded lorries were a problem throughout the country, he was confident that many more MPs would agree with him.