Weighbridge fault clears drivers
Page 28
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Two owner drivers were cleared of overloading charges after Appleby, Cumbria, magistrates accepted that an electronic weighbridge may not have been operating properly at the time of the weight check.
Kevin Reed, of Hexham, and Stephen Armstrong, of Haltwistle, had both denied exceeding the permitted train weight of their articulated outfits when hauling timber out of a forest at Newby Bridge.
Prosecuting, Peter Kelly said that the vehicles had been check weighed on the 50-tonne electronic weighbridge at the Holme Park Quarry. Reed's vehicle had a train weight of 45,436kg, an excess of some 19.57%, and Armstrong's 46,037kg, an excess of 21.15°..O.
The weighbridge operator, Norman Sharpies, said that he had 17 years experience. He agreed with John Piackhouse, defending, that he was not an expert in the way that a load cell worked. He was unable to say when the weighbridge would become inaccurate when a load cell Backhouse said that originally the case against the two men was to have been fought on the basis that they were travelling to the nearest available weighbridge to check weigh. However, when the statements relating to the accuracy and testing of the weighbridge were produced by the prosecution, it was properly disclosed that a short time later the weighbridge had ceased to work correctly because a load cell had failed.
Since the weighbridge was in part computer operated, argued Backhouse, it was impossible in the absence of expert evidence to satisfy the court that it had been working properly at the time of the check. The magistrates ordered that defence costs be paid out of public funds.