Hauliers pressing diligently onward
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• Two legal cases have given a boost to hauliers pressing for due diligence to be accepted as a defence or strong mitigation in overloading cases.
Both were appeals to a judge following a magistrates court conviction and fine. In one, the judge overturned fines totalling 2450 and gave a haulier and driver an absolute discharge. He expressed dismay that the case should have gone to court at all.
In the second, fines of £800 on Bray's Removals of Plymouth were reduced to £300, with the judge again criticising the fact that the police had not at any stage sought an explanation from the operator.
In the first case, at Exeter Crown Court on 9 November, WF Miners of Ashburton had its fine of £300 and its driver's 2150 fine overturned. Both were granted absolute discharges and their costs were paid from central funds.
The case was based on a second-axle overload on a fiveaxle vehicle. Judge Graham Neville accepted that the operator had no way of discovering this except by using a dynamic axle weighing machine which he did not have available to him, though one was available to the prosecuting authorities.
Judge Neville expressed surprise that the operator and driver were prosecuted at all. He said that in cases where mitigation is accepted by the prosecution, and there is no moral responsibility on operator or driver, they should not be brought to court. In this case, the prosecutor was Devon County Council.