Steel lorry was nearly 4 tons overweight
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• Because a dispatch clerk added a late load to • a normal delivery, a lorry owned by Miles Druce and Co Ltd set off with a load of steel which was overweight by 3 tons 194cwt, a public inquiry in Leeds was told last week. Miles Druce, the steel stockholding company, had been called before the deputy Yorkshire LA, Mr N. F. Moody, to show cause why the operator's licence it held in the Yorkshire traffic area, which authorized 39 vehicles and 15 trailers, should not be suspended, curtailed or revoked under Section 69.
The company, which was actually operating a total of 34 vehicles and 10 trailers from three depots in Leeds, was also explaining why two vehicles and a trailer from two of these depots had attracted three prohibition notices — two delayed and one immediate. After hearing of the lengths the company had gone to in a bid to improve maintenance arrangements, Mr Moody said that he had been satisfied that the GV9s had not been due to any defect in the company's maintenance system and merely warned that if any further prohibition notices were issued the firm could "expect much more drastic action to be taken".
However, he took a far more serious view of the three offences related to the overloaded steel laden lorry. On July 5 this year, the court heard, Miles Druce and Co Ltd had been fined a total of £15 at Beverley magistrates' court on three charges of overloading. When checked the vehicle in question had been found to have a gross overload of 3 tons 194 cwt and to have axle overloads of 2 tons and 1 ton 15cwt respectively.
Giving evidence in defence of the licence, Mr T. L. Paxton, a director of Miles Druce Metals Ltd, told the LA that when the offences had been committed the company had not had the use of a weighbridge near its depots, two of which were situated together. Now, he said, Leeds Corporation had given the firm permission to make use of a weighbridge practically adjacent to the depots and the firm had employed an attendant who would be present from 6 am every morning.
He went on to say that each load was now checked at least three times and added that as the vehicle involved in the overloading incident had been designed to pull upwards of 26 tons and had been coupled to a 40ft trailer it would have been almost impossible for the driver, who was given an absolute discharge by the magistrates, to notice that there was an overload -even of nearly 4 tons.
Before making his decision Mr Moody said of the offences: "These are extremely serious, they ought not to have occurred. It is my duty to impose some suitable penalty."
After adding that he felt it unlikely that such offences would be committed again he directed that the licence held by Miles Druce and Co Ltd in the Yorkshire traffic area be curtailed by seven vehicles and five trailers — including two specified vehicles --for a period of three months.