Driver could not have detected 10% overload
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II A mistake by an overseas shipper has cost Dunbartonshirebased lain Gardener (Haulage) and one of its drivers £1,164 in fines and costs.
The company and driver James Harkins pleaded guilty before the Wetherby, North Yorkshire magistrates to exceeding the permitted train weight of an artic carrying pallets of plywood imported from Singapore.
Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, Richard Wadkin said that when the attic was checked at the Roston Spa dynamic axle weigher it was found to weigh 41,910kg., an excess of some 10.3%.
Defending, Andrew Woolfall said the company had been moving pallets under that particular contract all that week.
It had established by checkweighing loads earlier in the week that a load of 20 pallets was legal. On this occasion 20 pallets had been loaded and the driver had not noticed anything wrong with the vehicle. However, said Woolfall, on this particular consignment a mistake had been made on the bill of lading and the pallets were heavier than before.
Pointing out that the outfit had a design weight of 52 tonnes, Woolfall stressed that such an overload would not have been detectable by the driver.
He added that neither the permitted gross weight nor any of the permitted axle weights had been exceeded.
Maintaining that the company had clone all it could to comply with the law, Woolfal I pointed out that it had provided a suitable vehicle and a highly trained driver to move the consignment.
Harkins had done all he could by check-weighing a number of loads at random earlier in the week: he and the company were before the court because of a mistake by an overseas shipper.
The magistrates fined the company ,£560 and Harkins £200, ordering the company to pay £406 prosecution costs. The company is considering an appeal against the penalties.