Overload case dropped
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• Barnsley Magistrates have dismissed overloading charges brought against P&O Roadtanks, and one of the company's drivers, after ruling that there was insufficient evidence that the computer controlling a dynamic axle weighbridge at Tankersley was operating to the required legal standard.
Both the Ellesmere Port-based company and driver Paul Gittins, of Frodsham, had pleaded not guilty to an offence of exceeding the permitted weight of the first axle of an articulated tanker last November.
Department of Transport traf
fic examiner John Carr could not explain discrepancies between the tachograph speed and mode traces and the times entered on the "till roll" produced by the weighbridge at the first weighing, and at a later weighing when the imposed prohibition was lifted.
Carr conceded that there was a discrepancy between the times at the first weighing of about nine minutes, while at the second
weighing the discrepancy appeared to have become two or three minutes in the other direction. He agreed that his own watch had been within two to three minutes of thc times shown on the tachograph chart throughout, and had the same disagreement with times shown on the "till roll".
There was no record of any adjustment having been made to the computer software or to the time settings, and the difference in time could not be explained.