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'Embarrassed' ERF fined for plating offence
Page 52
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• Fines and costs totalling £37 were imposed on commercial vehicle manufacturers ERF Ltd by Sandbach magistrates this week following guilty pleas on charges of operating a vehicle without plating and test certificates and not having the unladen weight clearly marked.
Prosecuting for the DoE, Mr D. M. Turner said the vehicle concerned was stopped during a roadside check on October 28 1971. The vehicle examiner said that the unladen weight was not marked on the vehicle and no certificates were displayed to show that it had been plated or tested. A traffic examiner visited ERF premises on November 22 and the works manager admitted that the vehicle had not been plated or tested although application was made on October 8. The vehicle was first registered in May 1969 and should have been plated and tested by June 1970.
Although, it was suggested, the defendant had apparently woken up to the fact by October 8 it was still being used on the public road on October 22. It was strange that a manufacturer of commercial vehicles should not know the regulation governing their operation.
In mitigation Mr R. Claven, for ERF, said the company had no previous convictions and found the present offences very embarrassing. The vehicle concerned in the offences was one of two used for carrying items between factories. At the time the vehicle was awaiting its test instructions had been given that it should not be used on the public road. However, October was a very busy month and a production line required a supply of support brackets if it was not to be stopped and• instructions were given to a driver to take the vehicle out to collect them. In the emergency of the moment it was overlooked that the vehicle should not have gone on to the public road.
There had been no deliberate attempt to flout the law and the vehicle was not obviously unroadworthy as the vehicle examiner had only seen fit to issue a delayed prohibition. There was no -evidence it was carrying a load which would have been in excess of its plated weight.