Driver banned on totting up procedure
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rry which shed 12 tons of steel in A49, has lost his appeal against a 1HE DRIVER of an articulated lo Yorth Shropshire, blocking the 'riving ban.
David Robert Armstrong, 23, yf Netherby Street, Longtown, 1:arlisle, was fined £125 and yanned for six months under toting-up regulations by Wem nagistrates for having an inse re load. He was also fined £30 'or using an hgv in a dangerous ;ondition, and ordered to pay 210 costs.
He was found not guilty of Jriving without due care when :he prosecution offered no evilence.
Mr Armstrong appealed to "Shrewsbury Crown Court on FriJay on the grounds that not beng able to drive for six months Mould reduce his wages and ..:ause hardship for him, his wife 3 n d young child.
But Recorder David Hallchurch Jismissed the appeal and awarded costs against him.
The driving disqualification came as a result of the totting up of endorsements, as he had previous convictions for speeding and having a defective tyre, and the mitigating circumstances were not enough for it to be reduced, he said.
Michael Mander, for the police, said Armstrong picked up the 12-ton load — mostly steel — in Hereford last April 29.
He and another man had secured it with a tensioned chain and two polypropylene straps, and he set off north.
Fortunately, the road was virtually devoid of traffic when the load became dislodged as he went through Preston Brockhurst on the A49. The lorry went out of control and hit a tree, and the road was completely blocked. Armstrong went to hospital.
"It does not require any imagination at all to see what would have been the result had there been a vehicle approaching the lorry, or behind it," he said.
Moreover, two of the studs to which one of its wheels was attached were missing, and the nuts on four or five other studs were only finger tight. The wheel would have come off had the lorry done any substantial mileage in that condition, he said.
For Armstrong, Michael Farmer said the firm he worked for was run by his father so he would not be without work, but would earn probably £75 a week instead of £100, and would be unable to keep up his mortgage and bank loan repayments.
Armstrong told the court he suffered concussion after the accident, and could not remember it. Nor did he recall being interviewed in hospital by the police. It was a normal type of load, secured in the usual way, and he had not been concerned about it before it suddenly shifted and came off.
"The chain and straps were ample for the load l had on," he said.
The wheel stud nuts had been correctly tightened with a torque wrench only days before the accident, he said.