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* IF A DRIVER has a complaint over weighing, magistrates were
Page 154
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told by a traffic examiner, the time to complain is when he is given a ticket to sign.
El WARRINGTON-BASED Bett-R (Haulage) Co Ltd and one of the company's drivers were ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £965, after they withdrew pleas of not guilty to overloading offences before the Ross on Wye magistrates.
The company and driver John Smith had originally denied exceeding the gross and second axle weights of a vehicle carrying cocoa beans between Avonmouth and Hereford last 16 November.
Prosecuting for West Midland traffic area, Beverley Bell said that the vehicle had been stopped in a weigh check on the A40 at Ross on Wye. The second axle was found to weight 1,100kg in excess of its permitted 10,500kg, an overload of 10.47%. The gross weight of the vehicle was 2,320kg in excess of its permitted 16,600kg, an overload of 13.97%. After the defendants changed their pleas to guilty, Gary Davies, defending, said the driver, who was no longer with the company, had alleged that there had been something wrong with the weighing equipment or the way that it was used. He had said that a number of other drivers that day had felt the same. The weighbridge was being operated by a young lady, who was obviously using it for the first time as she had to keep asking for instructions.
However, said Davies, investigations had not revealed anything positive, and it had been decided to plead guilty.
Asked by the magistrates whether weighing continued if there were complaints about the procedure, senior traffic examiner Juan Maddrell said that the driver was given a ticket which he was asked to sign. That was the time that he should complain, though he personally had never known a driver refuse to sign a ticket.
The magistrates fined the company £560 and Smith £280. They ordered the company and Smith to each pay £62.50 towards the costs of the prosecution.