Fines quashed for overloading
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• Exeter Crown
Court has quashed fines imposed on Peterborough Heavy Haulage and two of the company's drivers after vehicles carrying test weights were found to be overloaded.
Exeter Magistrates had fined the company £1,000 and drivers Carl Ripon and Michael Seaton £200 each (CM 18-24 November). At the company's appeal Judge Ian McIntosh replaced the fines with conditional discharges for 12 months.
The court was told that when the vehicles had been check weighed at Kennford, the outfit driven by Ripon had exceeded its permitted train weight by 1,070kg (2.81%); the compensating axles had been 1,690kg (8.98%) overweight. The train weight of the vehicle driven by Seaton had been a tonne (2.63%) over the limit; the compensating axles were overloaded by 1,200kg (6,38%). For the company and drivers, Jonathan Lawton said that Peterborough Heavy Haulage had been asked to provide two vehicles to carry a 50-tonne load of certified test weights.
The weights were owned by a well-known crane-hire company and there were no circumstances in which anyone would have anticipated that the test weights were inaccurate.
Had they been accurate no offences would have been cornnutted. But instead of weighing 50,000kg, the weights totalled 53,300kg.
Judge McIntosh commented that heavy vehicles were lethal instruments and he felt that the duty on a haulier to check weigh was absolute.
Lawton urged the court to take the view that in the circumstances of this particular case the company could not be criticised for relying on the detail of weights that had been provided by the customer.