Hauliers warned to reject weight threat
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by Lee Kimber • Transport lawyers are urging operators to boycott threatening admission forms issued by Trading Standards offices to hauliers whose trucks are found to be overloaded. And Road Haulage Association north eastern director Geoff Dunning is demanding that the notices are re-worded to make it clear that hauliers do not have to reply.
Trading standards offices nationwide are inserting the new Police and Criminal Evidence Act caution into the notices. This effectively removes the right of silence.
Leeds-based lawyer Gary Hodgson
says the caution is misleading because it encourages hauliers to incriminate themselves by threatening that they could harm their own defence if they do not fill out an attached admission form—even though hauliers accused of being overloaded are not legally bound to give extra information. "It's intimidatory," says Hodgson. "It coerces them to respond without taking legal advice, which could prejudice them."
Letters issued by trading standards offices vary, but they all contain the controversial new caution. West Yorkshire trading standards' letter conspicuously avoids advising hauliers to seek legal advice, while the version adopted in Cleveland threatens extra costs if hauliers do not attend an interview.
West Yorkshire trading standards officer Paul Cooper defends the letters because they offer a quick settlement but Dunning is not impressed: he will raise the issue with the RHA's infrastructure committee and will lobby trading standards officers at their annual conference in Scarborough next Wednesday.