As the title said, just heard a chap talking about it?
He was saying what it was jus curious if anyone else on here knows what it is? And if it exists?
“Weight in motion sensors”
Can accurately weigh a vehicle whilst at 56mph!!!
There are cameras used in conjunction with it in order to establish a vehicles maximum gross weight!!!
It exsists. Wims stands for Weigh In Motion Sensor. Vosa use them to check overloading. If they are active there will be a vosa car just after it who will invite you for a cuppa if you are overweight
Weigh
In
Motion
Sensor
A series of cable loops buried in the road structure of Motorways and Trunk Roads around the country. There are some 200+ locations. They were designed to hive the Highways Agency a traffic flow figure so that road maintenance could be planned rather than the usual situation of react to a worn out surface.
At a number of locations; Crick, Perry Bar, Clackett Lane, Dartford, Stafford, Carlisle and Portsmouth (there are others) the output from the WIMS has been coupled to an ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) system. This gives the ‘Ministry Plate’ weight details for a UK registered vehicle, foreign vehicles are compared against their generic weight limits for axle configuration. The system then provides the operator with a visual display showing what (if anything) is overloaded and by how much. Operator may then direct stopping vehicles to divert target vehicle into weighbridge where it is weighed on certified axle weigher. The equipment also gives an indication of vehicle speed so somebody may want to check the operation of the speed limiter in certain cases.
The cameras are both colour and B&W with infrared so the system works in all light and most weather conditions.
On average and selecting vehicles at random the checksite will find something around ten per cent of vehicles stopped. Using WIMS that figure changes to high 80s to mid 90 per cent of the time.
this is the picture they get on their screen
as you cross the sensors cameras also check to see if individual markers on the wheels are alligned if truck has them by slowing the video footage down so it looks like this even if truck travelling at 56mph 
a row of infrared sensors also bounce of the truck tyres to determine the tread depth on indivual tyres 
Was shown a video on this on my cpc course, never heard of it until then
wims? - Shwims…
You run over sensors at speed, and even though adjusting for that speed, the margin of error is going to be high.
Hand-held “speed guns” are notorious for clocking brick walls at 44mph after all… 
I don’t believe in the accuracy of this ‘technology’, the same as I don’t believe in anyone’s ability to successfully tailgate through a rising set of bollards! 
So tis true… I over heard a guy in ducting a new driver at boots in burton earlier… Was surprised as I’ve never heard of it before. Good scheme I guess, not sure how acurate this can be at 56mph mind? I’m sure its been tried n tested though!
a row of infrared sensors also bounce of the truck tyres to determine the tread depth on indivual tyres
I will accept that technology can do all the other checks but doubt that this is true.
All a reflected signal would show is the outside wall of the tyre and wouldn’t penetrate that in order to measure the void behind it that would be needed to measure the tread depth.
And even if it did penetrate to the first groove there is no way it could measure the other grooves across the tread of the tyre.
However, I will stand correction if proof is offered. 
I have a map showing all the current WIMS locations but don’t know how to post it on here 
17 locations but this was dated 2010 so there may be more now.
WIMS will always be supported by an actual weighbridge within a fairly small radius of the WIMS location - about 11kms I believe. They have however found the WIMS to generally be very accurate - but it isn’t sufficient for prosecution hence the need for a real weighbridge near by.
The WIMS will detect individual axle weights, gross weights etc
I believe VOSA intend to write to operators that are detected as overweight by WIMS but aren’t physically pulled onto a weighbridge. My understanding is this will be a polite letter saying “Oi we spotted this - don’t do it again” and repeat offences will be followed up with “Oi we warned you” and “Right we’re coming to have a look at you”.
According to a Highways Agency document I have they have also discovered they can use WIMS to detect tailgating. The system takes a pic of each truck and measures the time between vehicles. Figures I have here are around 12% (1.2 million) of HGVs under 2 second gap and 26% (2.6 million) under 4 second gap and we all know “Only a fool breaks the 4 second rule” WHether they will ever do anything with this info I don’t know.
I have a video of WIMS in use somewhere. This also shows a hand held temperature device that VOSA use whilst driving alongside a truck. They point it at each wheel and it detects wheels/hubs with varying temperatures which can highlight brakes binding or brakes not working, potential hub bearing failures etc.
del949:
a row of infrared sensors also bounce of the truck tyres to determine the tread depth on indivual tyres
I will accept that technology can do all the other checks but doubt that this is true.
All a reflected signal would show is the outside wall of the tyre and wouldn’t penetrate that in order to measure the void behind it that would be needed to measure the tread depth.
And even if it did penetrate to the first groove there is no way it could measure the other grooves across the tread of the tyre.
However, I will stand correction if proof is offered.
Tut tut Del, he did add a and a
OOPs! 
only just seen that
(backpedalling as quick as I can)