THE WRONG WEIGH
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• In an exclusive interview with Commercial Motor, newly appointed Roads and Traffic Minister Christopher Chope has shown little enthusiasm for any changes in the law on overloading, particularly when it comes to including a defence of consignor liability. No doubt his view that: "... it just gives an excuse for overloading" will come as a surprise to some people in the industry, not least the Road Haulage Association, which has been battling to get the statute book changed to make consignors fully responsible for their loads. Chope's views are even more surprising when you consider that hardly two months have passed since the DTp was warming to the consignor liability argument, having sent out forms to traffic examiners asking them to record details of incidents where a driver was caught for overloading but blames the consignor for giving inaccurate information. There could be any number of reasons for the minister's comment that "Frankly this is not very practical". Maybe the number of hauliers facing overloading charges who can genuinely claim consignor liability is so insignificant as to warrant no changes. But isn't it just a bit too soon after the forms were sent to the Traffic Areas to come to that conclusion? If the DTp has already got sufficient data back from the examiners then it certainly hasn't been in a rush to publish it. Whatever the reason for his aversion to consignor liability, Chope appears to have bigger concerns, not least inaccuracies in weighing systems. Which systems we can only guess. It is, however, interesting to note that following pressure from the industry the DTp recently agreed to allow drivers to have their vehicles reweighed if they are found to be overloaded by a dynamic axle weigher for a trial period. Despite its apparent inflexibility, the DTp is generally capable of coming to the right decision, given time, and few professional hauliers would argue with its desire to get rid of persistant overloaders. Consignor liability, however, is still a valid defence, and at the very least the DTp should keep an open mind on it. Perhaps there is some joy after all to be drawn from Chope's less-than-unequivocal statement. The minister said that consignor liability may not be very practical: he didn't say it was impossible.