Water added to fish caused overload
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WATER added by fishermen to facilitate the conveyor-belt loading of sprats from fishing boats to lorries at Buckie, got a transport firm into trouble, the deputy LA Mr J. S. Dalgetty, was told at a public inquiry in Aberdeen last week. He was told by an agent on behalf of A. W. Mair and Son, Portsoy, that although fishermen were told to ease off on water, they used it anyway as the fish would not move when the conveyor got dry.
As a result, said the agent, the firm had been fined £12 at Banff Sheriff Court for overloading a lorry with sprats. He added that the sprats were loaded loose and a driver checked his load by experience, allowing for water. In this case the driver had then gone to the public weighbridge as usual to check his loading and found he was overweight.
There were no facilities for unloading the excess and he had gone only half a mile when he was stopped and checked by DoE examiners. They had understood his position and given him a letter in case he was later stopped by the police, saying he was not dangerously overloaded and had already been checked, and was allowed to drive to Aberdeen.
The court ruled that, while overloading was a serious offence, because of the circumstances the penalty would be only the removal from the operator's licence of the margin of two vehicles.
A driver with an "excellent" 20-year record had made "just a lapse," losing a load of oil pipes off his lorry at the junction of West North Street and King Street, Aberdeen, the deputy LA was told at the same hearing.
Mr Hamish Barrack, managing director of JGB Oil Service Centres Ltd, Aberdeen, said a lorry carrying long oil pipes had apparently started ..off too quickly at the traffic lights. There had been only one chain holding the pipes in place and the whip-lash effect of the pipes had snapped the chain.
As well as other safeguards, it was company policy for such loads to have two chains or metal straps holding the pipes for just such an emergency. The lorry had the equipment, but for some reason the driver had not used it. "Even the best of us can slip up," said an agent for the firm, and Mr Dalgetty was told the incident cost the firm a fine of £75 and the driver a fine of £20 at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.
No penalty was imposed by the deputy LA.