Coils were safe
Page 16
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• The West Midland Licensing Authority was ordered to pay £320 of the defence costs when Lichfield magistrates cleared Yendor Transport and one of the company's drivers of using a vehicle with a dangerous load.
The Sheffield-based company and the driver, Derek Hall, had been accused of using a vehicle where the load had been secured in such a way that danger or nuisance was likely to be caused to persons or property by the movement of the load or part thereof.
Evidence was given that the vehicle, a Seddon Atkinson artic with a 9 metre trailer had been carrying two rows of steel coils. They were secured by baulks of timber inside the coils with a rope across the baulks. A number of the coils in the left hand row had begun to slip and one was overhanging the rear of the trailer by about 75mm when the vehicle was checked by a traffic examiner. The traffic examiner maintained that the ropes were loose and he was concerned that the overhanging coil would slip off the trailer. Hall said that the ropes were attached to the timber baulks by barrel hitches. He had never had a coil come off his vehicle and he did not feel there was any danger of one coming off on the day in question. The top ropes were slack because the load had settled but he maintained that the rope across the timber baulks was tight. He felt that the load had been safe and that it was very unlikely that the rope would give way under the weight of the 500kg coil.
Yendor Transport director Rodney Blagdon maintained that there was no way that the coil could have come off the vehicle. He said he had 30 years experience of the movement of steel coils and the method used to secure them had proved to be a satisfactory one.
He agreed that it would be dangerous if the ropes around the baulks were slack but said that the effect of the coil slipping would be to put tension on that particular rope. Blagdon also agreed that if the timber baulks should fracture or the ropes break then the coil could possibly come off.