speed limiters
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North Western Traffic Commissioner Beverley Ball has warned that drivers who choose to disable speed limiters do so at their peril and must expect to face the ultimate sanction.
Her comments came when she suspended three drivers' HGV licences for four months—they had disabled speed limiters while working for Colas.
Bell imposed a two-month suspension an a fourth driver who had known that his speed limiter was faulty but failed to report it to the company.
Sean Doyle and Robert Fernley, both of Widnes, and Peter [dams, of Warrington, had previously been fined £120 at Chester Magistrates' Court for interfering with their speed limiters.
Michael Hughes, of Ellesmere Port, had been fined £120 for using a vehicle without a functioning speed limiter.
The offences were committed between August 1999 and January this year.
Doyle said he had disabled the speed limiter in his vehicle to return, ready to start work the following day. Fernley said he had marital problems at the time and had disconnected the speed limiter so that he could get back home to try to save his marriage.
Ellams said he had done it mainly to help him overtake other lorries and make his journeys easier as he had sometimes been under pressure from customers.
Denying that he had ever interfered with the speed limiter; but admitting that he had not reported that it was faulty, Hughes said it had helped him get home after a long journey.
The IC said it was a serious offence to disable speed limiters in order to overtake vehicles being driven legitimately by drivers whose limiters were working. It was a deliberate action to gain an unfair advantage and a clear attempt to break the law.
Colas had previously been fined £9,000 for 30 offences of using vehicles without functioning speed limiters. The TC cut its North-Western Area licence from 15 vehicles and 15 trailers to 10 vehicles and 10 trailers.
The company had also sought authority for an extra 10 vehicles and 10 trailers at each of two new operating centres; the TC granted only eight vehicles and eight trailers at each centre.