How to Apply Licensing to the New Weight Regs.
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H0W do the recently enacted Construction and Use amendment regulations, which came into effect last August, affect hauliers so far as licensing is concerned? In simple, broad terms they allow operators to use longer vehicles and, in certain cases, heavier vehicles. So far as licensing is concerned, weight is all important. Recently, the Road Haulage Association area secretary for the East Midlands, Mr. W. Morton, gave some advice on this subject to his "constituents ", and I can do no better than to echo what he said.
Mr. Morton pointed out that while the ancillary user (the C-licence man) had complete freedom to use longer vehicles, and so on, the professional haulier was at a disadvantage in that the question of need would still be required to be considered by a Licensing Authority where a replacement involved a material increase in carrying capacity.
Where the difference in unladen weight resulted in a publication in " Applications and Decisions" (that is, where usually the weight increase was in excess of 10 cwt.) it was unlikely that objections would be received if it appeared that the replacement vehicle had the same number of axles and the same legal permissible payload as the old vehicle. But in the case of opposed applications, Mr. Morton continued, if the replacement did not result in an increase in the number of axles, confirmation of that fact usually secured the withdrawal of objections.
Where a replacement had a greater number of axles than the old vehicle, the resultant increase in carrying capacity necessitated evidence of need, even if the application was not opposed, and Mr. Morton pointed out that although it was the increase in unladen weight that determined whether a vehicle replacement application was to be published, the question of evidence of need depended upon the additional carrying capacity, which had largely been established by the increase in the number of axles.
Dealing with the question of what evidence was now necessary for replacing a vehicle of the existing legal weight with one of the new legal weight, but with the same number of axles, Mr. Morton said that without any increase in the number of axles, the maximum increase in gross weight was 2 tons on vehicles with two or three axles, including artics; 4 tons on four-axle rigids, and 8 tons on artics with four or more axles.
It was reasonable to assume, Mr. Morton continued, that in the case of vehicles with not more than three axles, the benefit of 2 tons in payload capacity may not be considered to be a material increase to necessitate customer evidence` of need. But with vehicles having four axles or more, however, resulting in a payload benefit of 4 to 8 tons, there seemed little doubt that evidence would be required. As exclusively reported in The Commercial Motor on October 9, the appeals were dismissed by the Appeals Committee at London Sessions, the deputy chairman having ruled that the flaps (or "load carrying extensions" as the designer of the vehicle, Mr. A. H. Carter, of Carter Engineering (Tamworth) Ltd., calls them) were part of the vehicle and determined the overall length of it.
Without these ramps, the vehicle in question measured 29 ft. 4 in. The front and rear extensions brought the overall length to 3-7 ft—just 7 ft. longer than the then regulations allowed.
As explained in "Licensing Casebook" on June 19, the important point for the defence to establish was that the ramps did not form part of the vehicle, and this point (and others) were argued at length by Miss Elizabeth Havers, who appeared for Dependable.
Mr. Donald Farquharson, for the respondents (the police) argued against this, of course. There was no distinction, he submitted, between the length of the construction and the length of use.
The case was, in fact, a perfectly good one to take to the Divisional Court— even the police thought they were going to lose before the case had commenced, gather.
However, the introduction of the new amendments to the C. and U. Regulations makes this unnecessary, and the company, quite wisely in my opinion, has decided to abide by the court's decision.