Load charge challenge
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by Jane Sayer • An angry Scottish log haulier is planning to challenge the Vehicle Inspectorate's current working practice when he appears in court on a 9.6 per cent gross overloading charge following a spot check.
Archie Ferguson, of AJ Ferguson Transport, Fort William, claims that the vehicle examiner at the dynamic axle weigher in Clwyd, North Wales should have asked the driver of the five-axle 38-tonner if his air pressure was low as well as allowing 10 sec onds after the park brake was released before calling the driver on to the weighbridge.
"By not doing this the weight of the vehicle would vary tremendously," he says.
Ferguson, who has been hauling logs for 40 years and has never been prosecuted, has commissioned a transport consultant to compile a report on the inaccuracies of dynamic axle weighers before he pursues his case.
"We have spent a lot of money to keep within the law," he says. "We have our own weighbridge at our yard and we have fitted weighers to our smaller cranes."
Keith Gill, senior traffic examiner responsible for Cheshire, Merseyside and North Wales, refused to comment on the case which has yet to be given a hearing date.
In 1991 the Vehicle Inspectorate issued guidelines to its examiners stating that if a prosecution for an overload of less than 10% or one tonne was made, it would need a "full justification" (CM 19-25 Sept 1991).