Q In a recent newspaper report of a prosecution of
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an operator for using an overweight vehicle, I notice that though the operator pleaded that his vehicle was on the way to a weighbridge he was still convicted and .fined. I thought that if a vehicle was going to be weighed when it was, stopped and checked then this rendered the operator safe from prosecution. Is this not so?
ASection 40(6) of the Road Traffic Act 1972 provides two defences against conviction for using an overweight vehicle. One given in this section is that it shall be a defence to prove either that at the time when the vehicle was being used on a road it was proceeding to a weighbridge which Was the nearest one available to the place where the loading of the vehicle was completed for the purpose of being weighed, or was proceeding from a weighbridge after being weighed to the nearest point where it was reasonably practicable to reduce the weight to the relevant limit without causing an obstruction on any road.
The other defence stated is that in a case where the limit of that weight was not exceeded by more than five per cent, that that limit was not exceeded at the time the loading of the vehicle was originally completed and that since that time no person has made any addition to the load.
From this you will see that it is not sufficient to say that the vehicle is on its way to be weighed but this fact must be capable of being proved. It must also be on its way to the nearest available weighbridge.
Without knowing more about the case which you quote it is not possible to comment on it. However, unless the operator was in the habit of sending his vehicles to the nearest weighbridge after loading, and he could produce a number of specimen weigh tickets to prove the fact, it would be difficult to support his statement that this was where the vehicle was going when it was stopped.