• Jonathon Lawton, solicitor, works from his Chester base, Aaron & Partners, where he specialises in transport law.
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His grandfather was one of the first hauliers in England, operating steam-driven vehicles, and now Lawton — once a director of the business — is employed in transport law.
Lawton worries that British hauliers' navel-searching will stand them in poor stead to meet coming changes in European law. "We face problems
because we are so insular and do
not know enough about attitudes to haulage in Europe," he says. An outcome of this will be a greater
reflection of European attitudes, as opposed to UK attitudes, in new laws.
"The trouble with the hire and reward UK haulage in dustry", says Lawton, "is their
terror of UK competitors preventing them getting round a table to discuss their ,problems — but we will see increasing Green legislation and a far greater level of enforcement." On the agenda are 65 new roadside enforcement centres from the Department of Transport and a law allowing the police to prevent faulty lorries from continuing their journeys.
He is "fundamentally opposed" to absolute liability for either the haulier or consignor, and believes in the defence of due diligence. "The present authorities should be whipped, beaten and bludgeoned until they accept this," he says.
Lawton tells of a company loading salt vehicles in Cheshire, which does not provide checkweighing facilities for drivers on-site. "The West Yorks Trading Standards Department for whom the sun cannot set quickly enough for me — stop the drivers and prosecute them for overloading, but to the best of my knowledge they have never telephoned the salt company to ask them to put an axle bridge in," he says in exasperation.
Lawton's views are no less salty when it comes to magistrates. While admitting they have an "horrendously difficult job" ruling on cases from drunk and disorderly to murder and rape, he does not believe that they act "judiciously" when it comes to hauliers. "It does seem they allow prejudices against the I IGV industry to affect their decisions," he complains.
He cites a case where a builder's merchant and its driver were prosecuted for three overloading offences. They wrote to the court pleading guilty, and fines of £10,000 were imposed. "Ridiculous and out of proportion!" fumes Lawton, "Hauliers should never just write and plead guilty — you must have a body in court."
But if UK hauliers suffer, foreign hauliers. believes Lawton, get fined perhaps three times as much for the same offences, in what appears to be a "different tariff. He also fails to see why a French driver should be held in custody for a non-arrestable offence. "It's an abuse of the legal system. Obviously. French drivers who commit offences should be dealt with, but I am damned if I see why they should be locked up."
Lawton thinks that magistrates' benches often do not understand the finer points of technical arguments presented to them, and claims that the blame is shared by hastily-written transport regulations which are inaccurate or ambiguous.
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"Take braking", he says. "It's a very complicated business stopping an HGV, but people get prosecuted if an adjuster is slack. However that is not an offence. What is an offence is whether or not the HG'V can stop within 50% of its braking efficiency. But when you point this out to the magistrate they do not understand the difference."
Unlike Kirkbright, he is not a fan of legal insurance schemes. He argues that the schemes exist to make a profit; therefore; "they will engage a local solicitor rather than pay for a transport specialist like myself or Stephen who may have to travel across the country".