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Fined £6k for 33% overloading offence
Page 22
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After entering a last-minute guilty plea, an operator is hit in the pocket for overloading two vehicles. „
OVERLOADING TWO vehicles cost Wolverhampton-based Johal Dairies £10515 in fines and costs when the company admitted the offences before the town's magistrates.
Johal had initially pleaded not guilty to 10 offences of overloading brought by Wolverhampton Trading Standards.
However, on the day of the trial. Johal Dairies admitted to exceeding the permitted gross and rear axle weights of two vehicles, and the prosecution offered no evidence in respect of the other charges.
Amy Jacobs. prosecuting, said that on 23 June 2009, the first vehicle was discovered to have had a gross overload of 35.1% and a rear axle overload of 38.4%.
On 24 September, a second vehicle was discovered which had a gross overload of 26.2% and a rear axle overload of 19.10/0.
She pointed out that these were not small percentages, and going on to say that the risk from overloaded vehicles was not only a danger to other road users but the offence also undermines the idea of fair competition with law-abiding rivals.
There was a list of previous similar offences committed by the company.
Overloading convictions led to action being taken by the West Midlands Traffic Commissioner in August 2008, when the firm's 0-licence was cut from 20 vehicles to 15 for a period of a year.
For Johal. Ben Williams said the business had installed a weighbridge at its yard in October at a cost of £5,000.
As a consequence of the weighbridge being put in, the prospects of any recurrence of overloading would be cut, if not eliminated altogether.
A person had been made responsible for carrying out regular and spot checks, and drivers could now ask for their vehicles to be checked.
The company operated 60 vehicles — a majority of which were 3.5-tonners — over a wide geographical area.
For the most part, the company ran a tight ship, and spent a great deal of money on maintaining its vehicles.
After Williams had said there was a real risk that the company would be stripped of its 0-licence by the TC, District Judge Wilkinson said that, hopefully, there would be no repeat of these overloading offences and that the TC would view the installation of the weighbridge as attractive and would he moved not to take the step of removing the 0-licence because local jobs were at risk.
The company was fined a total of £6,000 by the District Judge.
District Judge Wilkinson also ordered the business to pay prosecution costs of 14.500, as well as an additional £15 victim surcharge.