MoT rejects 10% weight tolerance
Page 63

If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• A request by the Home Grown Cereals Authority for a 10 per cent tolerance on the plated weights of vehicles carrying cereals or similar good has been rejected by the Ministry of Transport. The Ministry says that consideration had been given to similar requests during the passage of the Road Safety Bill, but acceptance of a tolerance might mean that even where vehicles could be weighed they would be loaded up to the permitted margin rather than to the plated limit; this had certainly been the experience of Continental countries which allowed such tolerances.
The Ministry has, however, admitted that there is a shortage of weighbridges and says that so long as operators can demonstrate to enforcement officers that every reasonable precaution had been taken to comply with legal weight limits, it is unlikely that prosecutions would follow other than serious cases of overloading.