limber charge gets the chop
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• James Industrial of Wigan, and Bolton driver Wayne Shaw, have been cleared of overloading a drawbar outfit carrying timber. But Crewe Magistrates Court fined the company £1,000 with £30 costs, after it admitted using the vehicle without a plating certificate.
PC Morn! of Cheshire Police said he had seen the MAN drawbar combination, which appeared to him to be overloaded, travel. ling south on the M6 motorway. He instructed the driver to pro. ceed to a plate weighbridge at a sand quarry at Bathgate. When the combination was weighed the towing vehicle weighed 19,150kg, which was 2,150kg (12.3%) over its permitted 17 tonnes. The trail. er weighed 23,100kg, which was 6,840kg (42%) over its 16,260kg limit. The combination weighed 42,250kg: an overload of 30%.
Questioned by Jonathan Lawton, defending, PC Morril
agreed that he had no knowledge about the operation of the weighbridge and was not familiar with the Code of Practice in relation to static weighbridges. He had assumed that the weighbridge was working but he did not know who had turned it on or when, He had not checked the plate to see if it had been swept before weighing as he did not believe it was necessary. He accepted that the plate was raised above the surrounding area and that the approach to the weighbridge was uneven, He agreed that the weighbridge could not be used for
split weighing because of the uneven surface.
Lawton argued that there were substantial doubts about the accuracy of the weighbridge. There was no evidence that it had been tested by trading standards officers, or that it had been stamped and approved as a trade weighbridge. The problems caused by the uneven surface would be exacerbated with a drawbar combination, as there would always be drag from the coupling on the rear axle of the towing vehicle or the front axle of the trailer. This would distort the readings.
The magistrates ordered that the company's and driver's defence costs should be met out of public funds.