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'Elastic' weighers blamed
Page 21
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• "Elastic weighing machines" owned by traders in large conurbations were blamed for loss of revenue on Monday when Mr Derek Dowsett, of Atlas Express Ltd, was introducing a discussion on the problem of' overloading at a meeting of the express carriers group of the RHA at Brighton.
Mr Dowsett, chairman of the Association's West Midland area, told the meeting that his company, and others like it, relied on their customers declaring weights that were accurate. An exercise recently carried out by Atlas, he said, had shown that over a period of one month in only nine of his company's depots, when exact check weighing had been carried out on 371 vehicles out of a total of 2,475, the loss indicated represented £140. If it was assumed that the pattern would have continued throughout the whole operation the loss would be £1000 per month or /12,000 per year for the nine depots. It was pointed out that the expense of checking every load on a permanent basis would largely offset any saving made.
The approach to the customer, continued Mr Dowsett, should be on one of two grounds: that of common honesty or a suggestion that if through the customer's under-declaration the company found itself in trouble because of overloaded vehicles then the customer was likely to be called to any case that was brought against it.
Mr Dowsett suggested that it would not be unreasonable for express carriers to seek means of recovering this loss because of the likelihood of being unable to increase rates in the near future.