a mu
Page 56
Page 57
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
crack-down
on file overloaders
High technology is aiding traffic examiners in their efforts to curtail vehicle overloading. Jack Semple reports
FOUR THIRTY in the afternoon, and the check weigh at Beattock on the A74 is finishing.
Remarkably, there have not been many overloaded lorries during the six hours that trucks have been diverted over the dynamic weigher. That is not because the police have been missing the slow lorries. Not all those heading south are stopped, but the slow ones can be picked out quite easily by the trained eye as they labour up the steep pull just before the weigher.
Then it dawns on the police. Most of the overloaded vehicles are parked in lay-bys, having been warned of the check by other drivers on CB radio. Systematically, the police round up these "cowboys", run them over the weighbridge, and book them. They are almost all overloaded, either on gross weight or on one axle.
Overloading has been the main instrument of the Department of Transport's clampdown on lorry traffic offences for several years now, and the dynamic weigher has been at the centre of its enforcement effort.
Dynamic weighers are faster, simpler and easier to use than static weighers, but above all they are . able to weigh individual axles with a much greater degree of accuracy. The effect of driving an axle on to a static weigher is often to increase considerably the registered weight, certainly to a degree of inaccuracy that would be wholly unacceptable to courts. Inaccuracies of up to 2 tonnes have been found.
There are more than 50 dynamic weighers in operation already, and another 30 are planned and will be in operation by the end of next year if the DTp's own target is met. They are not cheap. Installation of the weigher at Wall, on the A5, cost 000,000 by the time ground had been levelled and room made for lorries waiting to be weighed.
Much energy has been put into checking for overweight lorries for several reasons. One is pressure from lorry haters to do something against juggernauts. But there has also been more reasoned concern over the effects of overloading on road safety and damage to the highways and urban services which lie underneath them.
This damage has not been satisfactorily quantified, but the concern has been real on the part of both central and local government.
Increased enforcement has also been welcomed by the Road Haulage Association as a way of reducing unfair cornpetition, although the RHA questions whether the policy does enough to catch operators who habitually break the law for profit.
Dynamic weighers have been installed in most of the large ports and more are planned — in Southampton and Ramsgate, Immingham and Hull, Fishguard and Pembroke. And they are sited on many main roads. This means that local operators can often use alternative roads to dodge checkweighs.
Daytime checks are tradi tional. Some hauliers have often run at night to avoid being caught overloaded (or to evade checks on drivers' hours). But in this area, too, enforcement efforts have been stepped up, and in most traffic areas there are at least some checks at night and weekends.
The reliability of dynamic weighers, and therefore whether they can be used to convict hauliers and their drivers, has been the subject of several bitter battles in the courts. The weighers won, and there can be no defence now on the basis of the reliability of dynamic weighers.
Two cases were fought successfully by hauliers, but the weighbridge was not found to be at fault. In one case, at a South Yorkshire site, readings were found to have been taken incorrectly by a weights and measures man.
And in an early Beattock case against John G. Russell, the prosecution was dropped after police evidence was shown to be incorrect. They had mistaken the design weight of the drive axle of the tractive unit by around half a tonne.
There is a strict code for dy
namic weighers. First, there must be at most a 3mm difference in height from one end to the other. And there are detailed procedures which enforcement staff must follow. Lorry drivers must stop at least 6m from the weighpad and advance at a steady speed of not more than 21/2mph. (The weighers are called "dynamic" because the vehicle is moving when weighing takes place.) If he goes too fast, 8s Os will show on the display in front of the weighing area, and he will have to go through the process again.
Artie tipper drivers have learned one or two fair tricks. For instance, one driver who was found to be overloaded on his drive axle and insisted on a re-weigh. He reversed rapidly and slammed on the brakes at the other side of the weighbridge. His load of aggregates shifted towards the back of his three-axle trailer and reduced the load on the drive axle. So when he rolled back over the weigher the vehicle was within legal limits.
Self-weigh has been recently introduced, mainly at the ports, where vandalism is not a danger, so that drivers can see in advance if they are running legally or not.
The problem with self-weigh is that the visual display and the traffic lights which tell drivers when to proceed are easily vandalised. Normally they are locked in the hut built as part of the weigh facility. The DTp hopes that the industry will use an element of self-regulation. And there is always the threat of increased enforcement — a classic case of carrot and stick. If a driver does weigh, finds
himself legally loaded and is subsequently found to be overloaded for some reason, he will not be safe from conviction. But the penalties, both in the courts and from Licensing Authorities, could be reduced if the operator is called to public inquiry. It is also hoped that the
driver will learn by experience how his lorry can be legally loaded.
A number of hauliers already have standing instructions to their drivers to check-weigh if they are in doubt about their load and to make alternative arrangements if found to be overweight. Several hauliers on Tayside intend to check their own weights on a regular random basis at the new weigher opened at the truckstop there last week.
Around 200 dynamic weighers of the kind used by the DTp (made by Weighwrite of Farnham, Surrey) have been sold in Britain, at upwards of £10,000 for a complete installation, to firms with large fleets wanting to check-weigh their own lorries. Many offer the facility to contractors loading at their premises. (Any firm willing to make its dynamic weigher available to the industry, please write to CM.) Many of the large firms which have bought weighers had believed they never overloaded. On gross weight were usually correct. But they were horrified when they started getting prosecuted for axle overloads.
The DTp believes that penalties for overloading have lagged behind its own enforcement effort. Although the maximum fine is £1,000, few magistrates ever impose penalties even approaching this figure. The stiffest fines tend to be from courts in areas near roro ports. Recommended average fines for first offenders have, however, just been doubled this week (see page 3).
Operators continue to face a problem with magistrates who are ignorant of mitigating factors. Some fail to grasp that a lorry can change from being within weights on one axle to being illegal simply by taking some freight off the vehicle. They do not always take account of an absence of commercial gain. The introduction of 38-tonners, and pressure on drive axles at the same time as new clamp-down on axle weights has caused problems.
Shifting loads remain a problem for tipper operators. The only answer to this is restraining bulkheads within the tipper body, although this would reduce the already critical payload available.
Foreign hauliers are notorious overloaders and penalties are sometimes very low. A tough line is taken in the Dover area, but in many other parts of the country they get off lightly.
Contractors are also in an extremely weak position when faced with deciding whether or not to carry an overweight load, whether it is an ISO container or a couple of extra tonne pallets. The DTp is confident, however, that the level of overloading, certainly the most dangerous and damaging overloading which has been common in the past, has been substantially reduced by its extensive enforcement efforts. These have been made more effective by the dynamic weighers.
Overloading has been a major pre-occupation in recent years; drivers' hours records are now becoming so. Traffic examiners are using computers to check whole batches ol tachograph charts, and are hoping that this, combined with dynamic weighers, will give them an edge over wayward operators.
Not ' all operators are being affected by the new enforcement efforts, but most are now feeling some pressure.