Government reassures industry on axle weigher legislation
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ALTHOUGH existing legislation could authorize the fitting of axle-load indicators the Government has no i .tention of using them to :st the weight o! lorries.
This w s made plain las week by spokesman Lot% Garnswoi hy, when th. Upper Eli Jse was discussing the Road Traffie Bill.
The T nsport Ministe was exan fling the develop ment and potential value these dev Ts, and tests wet in hand o determine hoe reliable existing mode were, we t on Lord Garn worthy.
There were, he adds certain roblems of ce involved compulso fitment t all vehicles woo indeed be extreme expensiv
Earliei Lord Lucas Chilwori had suggest altering he section of t Bill deal ig with the weig ing of th vehicles to makt plain thz any weighing h
to be carried out by a piece of machinery which was not part of the vehicle.
Lord Garnsworthy said that this was unnecessary, as weighing would be in accordance with the 1972 Act, which specified a weighbridge or other machine; regulations about selfweighing devices would be incompatible with that wording.
Lord Lucas said that in the main those axleweighing devices which were fitted to vehicles had not yet been proved acceptable to most operators and hauliers.
The industry could not be happy about any device, whether it was fitted to a vehicle or whether it was a portable device taken to a roadside, which was capable of misinterpretation and had a continuing need for recalibration.
He thought that the industry would be reassured that until such time as axleweight indicator devices were perfectly acceptable to all sides they would go along with those regulations in force and the new kind of machinery in the Bill.
Lord Lucas withdrew an amendment to ensure that driving instruction on commercial vehicles was given only by registered or licensed persons, as it is with cars.
He did so, he said, very reluctantly, and only because there were so few Peers present to hear the arguments.
Lord Lucas, who is president of the Heavy Goods Vehicle Driving Instructors, said that in 1973 some 71,500 hgv driving tests were carried out, and the pass rate was 55 per cent. Of the applicants 14,600 were trained under the Road Transport Industry Training Board scheme, and their pass rate was 80 per cent.
Lord Garnsworthy told Lord Lucas that while the Government was in no sense complacent about the
position, the rate of involvement of goods vehicles mei 11/_, tons unladen in injury accidents had fallen steadily from 259 per 100 millior miles travelled in 1969 to
in 1972.
He gave a firm under. taking to bring all the point: raised by Lord Lucas to tht attention of the Transpor Minister, but he had to sa! that the Government': present attitude was one o reluctance to introduce z further statutory control fo which it felt at the momen the need had not beei demonstrated.
If in due course the neet for control was firm! established the Governmen would probably wish to do i in a different way from tha proposed by Lord Lucas. I might require professionz instructors to have passed departmentally approve, training course rather tha extend the register
approved drivin instructors.