Kent truck checks are stepped up
Page 8
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Truck checks are being stepped up in Kent, following the merger of two police traffic divisions, which are now run from one site at Broadstairs.
The move will enable police to increase checks in Ramsgate from virtually none to about four a month, says Sergeant Ray Carver.
Before Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Sandwich were merged with Margate checks were spasmodic due to lack of co-ordination, says Carver.
In the past two weeks, police and trading standards officers have run two checks in the area.
The first 31/2-hour check, on the road to the docks, found faults with eight out of the 30 vehicles stopped including three overloading offences. Two British drivers will be summonsed for being 1.5 tonnes over the limit; a Spanish driver has already been fined £1,000 by Ramsgate magistrates for a 139f overload.
The check also found two drivers with expired vehicle excise licences, a concessionary tax disc offence, an 0-licence offence and a trailer without a test disc. In two hours of a second vehicle check near the docks two of the 15 vehicles stopped had faults.