The forgotten plate
Page 22
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• Because Mercedes-Benz neglected to put a manufacturer's plate on a new coach supplied to G B Hirst Travel International of Honley, near Huddersfield, the company has been fined £40 by Faversham Magistrates.
The company admitted that on 23 August 1987 it had used a coach at Broughton on the A2 which was not fitted with a manufacturer's plate showing the prescribed weight.
Defending, Stephen Kirkbright said the company had been in business 20 years and had had no previous convictions. It had ordered two brand new coaches from Mercedes, costing over £150,000, which should have had plates fitted during the manufacture.
The vehicle concerned had been imported. Neither the concessionaires, the specialist bodybuilders or the examiner, who had carried out the Department of Transport test before the coach was issued with a Certificate of Initial Fitness, had noticed the plate had been missing.
The only person to notice
had been the police officer on 23 August. Because the coach had passed through at least five people's hands Hirst was entitled to assume that there had been a plate.
Kirkbright produced a letter from the supplier, Yeates of Loughborough, confirming that the coach had been imported, and that the plate should have been attached during manufacture and checked, but that it had been overlooked.
Fining the company £40, the chairman of the magistrates said they had reduced the penalty as they had the greatest sympathy with the company over the circumstances of the case.