Ports check trailers for ice
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• Port authorities have been urged to check trailers leaving their parks for ice after magistrates in Harwich threw out a case against a lorry driver whose trailer had shed ice on to an oncoming vehicle.
David Pass, a driver for Newark haulier Walkers & Son, was given an absolute discharge last week at Harwich Magistrates Court, where he was appearing on a charge of using a goods vehicle with an insecure load. On a cold January afternoon. Pass had been picking up a trailer bound for Goodyear in Birmingham from Parkstone Quay at Harwich. As he left the docks, a sheet of ice fell off the top of the trailer canvas and landed on the windscreen of a van travelling in the opposite direction.
The ice caused no damage to the van, but the incident was reported to police who decided to prosecute. Rather than risk having penalty points added to his driving licence, Pass plead ed guilty but argued that even if he had known the ice was there, it would have been too dangerous for him to have attempted to climb on to the canvas to clear it.
The magistrates threw out the charge, accepting Pass's defence that he did not know he was committing an offence and was morally blameless.
The magistrates also indicated that it was the Port authority's responsibility to check trailers for ice before they left the docks. Checks are already carried out on trailer tops for stowaways.
Anton Balkitis. a Nottingham solicitor representing Pass, said the ruling was a "victory for the driver and for
common sense-. A spokesman for the health and Safety Executive said the decision indicated port authorities had a "duty to take sensible, practical steps to ensure trailers on their premises are free of ice".