THE DAMAGE INFLICTED o roads by overloaded lorries explained to
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the representa of over 40 "shire" county c cils, six metropolitan cou and 11 London boroughs.
Speaking at the Associati( County Councils' lorry ovenl ing seminar in London e( this week, Kent county surv Allen Smith explained "fourth power rule." This mi that if an axle weight is clout then its damaging factor h creased by two to the fo power — by 16 times.
Therefore, a relatively s increase in axle weight sucl 10 tonnes to 11 tonnes (10 cent) will result in a 74 per increase in the damage facto
.Mr Smith said that a sui carried out at a weighbri check in Kent showed that "four axle commercial is the killer" as far as road damag concerned. A fully-laden dou decker rear-engined bus is worst of the psvs, with a r damage factor similar to tha a five axle artic.
Nottinghamshire Cou Councillor Frank Higgins tal about the effects of overload on the council's budget. Beca of the fourth power rt overloading also cause disproportionate amount damage to the budget, said Higgins. He reported ti structural damage to the m roads in Nottinghamshire du( overloading was costing £0.3 a year, which is more than 141 cent of the total spent on struc ral maintenance.
If Nottinghamshire's exp ience is typical, this meant tl nationally overloading of lorr is costing about £27m a year structural damage to the roa claimed Mr Higgins.
He thought that the cum fines imposed for overloadi were so low that they were deterrent whatsoever. In N tinghamshire during 1981/ fines totalling £7,835 were posed for overloading offenci But the true cost of enforcemE was approximately £16,500 a so the whole operation was 11 at a loss and certainly did r contribute to the £0.33m wor of structural damage to tl roads.
Mr Higgins therefore called f increasing the fines imposi and raising the current fine f overloading of £400. He wou also prefer a system of fixed p nalties for overloading.