Queen's Bench Ruling on Dropping Oil
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Asr week the Queen's Bench
Divisional Court gave a ruling on the meaning of the word " emission" in Regulation 80 of the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations, 1963. Reeulation 80 makes it an offence for a motor vehicle from which smoke, visible vapour, grit, sparks, ashes, cinders or oily substance is emitted to be used on a road if the emission causes or is likely to cause damage to property drinjOry to persons on the road.
The Court was dealing with a case -concerning a Ford Thames tipper. While tipping crazy paving in the private drive of a house at Aveley, Essex, oil gushed from the hydraulic ram. The driver stopped the flow of oil by locking the ram. When the lorry was driven away, oil dripped from the bodywork on to the road. Police, who noticed the oil two hours later. used 12 large buckets of sand to cover it over.
The driver, Mr. F. A. Tidswell, of Stifford Clays, Grays, Essex, was convicted of an offence under Regulation 80 by Grays magistrates. He appealed to Essex Quarter Sessions which, last December. reversed the magistrates' decision and quashed the conviction.
Last week, Lord Parker (the Lord Chief Justice). Mr. Justice Ashworth and Mr. Justice Widgery, sitting in the Divisional Court. allowed a prosecution appeal against the decision of the Quarter Sessions and ordered that the conviction be restored.
Mr. Justice Ashworth said that counsel for Tidswell had argued that the "emission " of oil was a single act which stopped when the ram was locked. Because this had taken place on private land no offence was committed and it Was contended that what happened on the road was a " falling " or "dripping " or " discharge " or " leak " of oil and was not an " emission "..
The judge added: "It is impossible to limit emission to a. single act.'-'