A POLICE appeal against the dismissal by Melton Mowbray magistrates on
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July 11, 1961, of summonses against the driver and owner of a lorry which, it was alleged, exceeded the permitted length, was dismissed with costs by the Queen's Bench Divisional Court on Monday.
It was alleged that Mr. Norman Geoffrey Vipond (the driver) and Mr. James Douglas Robson (the owner and
passenger) used, at Thrussington, Leicestershire, aCommer articulated
lorry which did not comply with No. 6 of the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use): Regula dons, 1955, -in that the overall length of the vehicle exceeded 35 ft.
Mr. F. H. L. Petre, for .the appellant, said that the vehicle was a two-deck car carrier, carrying two cars on each deck. If an extension at the back of the lorry was used three cars could be carried on the upper deck.
The vehicle was designed to carry a maximum of five vehicles. At the rear there was a lifting or loading appliance which, when the lorry was unloaded or when carrying one to four cars, was able to be drawn up like a tailboard into a vertical position.
When there were three cars on the upper deck this appliance could not be drawn to the vertical position, being obstructed by the boot of the third car. When this appliance was vertical, the overall• length was within the permitted limit, but when a third car was on the upner deck the limit was exceeded.
Giving judgment, Mr. , Justice IviacKenna said that but for the authority of the case of Andrews v. A. G. Kershaw, Ltd., decided by the 'Divisional Court in 1951, he would have found that an offence had been" proved. Regulation 6 provided that the overall length should not exceed 35 ft. It was therefore a regu
lation as to construction and a person using a vehicle on a road -which failed to comply . with the -regulation committed an offence. Here, the length of the vehicle measured to the extreme part of the gear exceeded 35 ft. Nothing in the definition of overall length required the exclusion of lifting gear from the length. On that reasoning, the respondents were guilty.
However, in Andrews v. Kershaw, Mr. Justice Hilbery and Mt. Justice Pilcher, with Lord Goddard (then Lord Chief Justice) dissenting, held that a pantechnicon which exceeded the permitted overhang when the tailboard was slanting outwards was not infringing the regulations.
Applying the reasoning in that case to the present one, his lordship would hold: (1) the vehicle, as ordinarily constructed, with the lifting gear in a vertical position, did not exceed the permitted length; (2) slanting of the lifting gear to accommodate a third car could not be said to be a reconqtruction of the vehicle: (3) therefore the vehicle, with the lifting gear in the slanting position, was still within the permitted length.
Agreeing, Mr. Justice Ashworth said that he also, but for the decision in Andrews v. Kershaw, would have allowed the• appeal.
Lord Parker (the Lord Chief Justice) agreed.