P&O must wait for a decision
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WERLOADING convictions led to P&O Roadways Limited ippearing at disciplinary proceedings before South Eastern Licensng Authority, George Mercer.
A substantial number of ;onvictions had been recorded igainst the company which iolds an international licence in he South East for 60 vehicles Ind 58 trailers.
Edward Haines, management ;onsultant in the European Transport Division of P& 0, said that the 32 ton vehicle which was the workhorse of container transport had long been susceptible to drive axle overloading. He said that carriers of imported containers were particularly vulnerable as their drivers had no control at the point of loading. Saying that the group had been concerned about the problem, Mr Haines referred to an article written in CM by P&O Roadways managing director James Brooke.
Mr Haines said he was a strong advocate of tri-axle units rather than tri-axle trailers to overcome the problem. Since the introduction of the 38 tonne limit, the group, as a whole, had spent £7m on tri-axle tractors of which £1.8m had been spent by P 8t 0 Roadways. Around 250 were now operated by the group and 50 by P & 0 Roadways. To his knowledge, there had been no prosecution for overloading relating to that type of vehicle.
The group was also constantly trying to improve the way that containers were loaded at their point of origin.
Mr Brooke said his company operated a national fleet of 288 vehicles. Only three of the convictions related to South Eastern-based vehicles. The vast majority concerned axle and gross unit overloads. The problem was of load distribution rather than total weight. Almost all containers coming in from overseas were sealed. This meant the driver did not have access to the container to see how the load had been distributed. Because vehicle design weights were greater than the legal limits, it was very, very difficult for a driver to detect an overload.
P&O had discussed overloading incidents with the customers concerned and if they believed the customer was consistently making no effort to improve the situation, they ceased carrying their traffic.
A number of lighter tractive units had been acquired because 20ft containers required to be carried on a four-axle 32 ton rig to avoid axle overloading. Tare weight was reduced by fitting alloy wheels at a cost of £1,300 apiece.
The company carried over 67,000 loads a year and it worked out at one conviction every 2,700 movements. In the South East, the figure was one conviction every 11,250 movements. That worked out at one conviction per vehicle every 2030 years.
Dealing with a failure by the company to notify the Licensing Authority of some of the convictions, Mr Brooke said it was a policy to notify all traffic areas of convictions.
It appeared that letters had been sent and not received. For the future such letters would be sent by recorded delivery.
Reserving his decision, Mr Mercer said that many companies went through their lives without a conviction. Because a company had 1,000 vehicles, did not entitle it to have convictions.