Conviction could not stand for tiny overload
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• Lockerbiebased haulier Ian Wright and his driver Gordon Mackie-Patterson were given absolute discharges after being convicted by Penrith magistrates of exceeding the permitted train weight of an attic.
Both Wright and MackiePatterson denied the charge. Traffic examiner Keith Smith said that when the artic was stopped in a check at the dynamic axle weighbridge at Harker on the A74, its permitted train weight was found to have been exceeded by 1,210kg (32%).
Questioned by Jonathan Lawton, defending, Smith said no allowance had been made for the statutory tolerance of plus or minus 150kg per axle. If 150kg had been deducted from each of the axle weights found, the overload would have been reduced to 310kg (0.81%).
He was aware of a discretionary tolerance of 5%, or one tonne, under which it was not usual to prosecute, and he agreed that if the 150kg allowance had been made the vehicle would have been under that discretionary limit. He was unaware that the consignee could have been prosecuted, but accepted that both Wright and his driver had been entitled to accept that the load was legal from the consignment note.
Lawton said that taking account of the code of practice and the tolerances, the overload was so small that it would be an abuse of court procedure for Wright and his driver to be convicted. The magistrates refused a prosecution application for costs in the sum of £300.