Hi,
If you get stopped by Police to check the weight of your vehicle to see if it exceeds or is in line with the limits how is this done by them?
Yes, you can show them the paperwork and they can check your tyres or suspension and the load itself, however will they take you along to a weighbridge?
Yes they can/will.
Just to be pedantic. the Police do not have the authority to weigh your vehicle, only to direct you to be weighed… unless they have reasonable grounds to suspect you are breaking criminal law- and before any one argues over weight is criminal law ! just look at the case law, for overweight vehicles the case law is bought by VOSA/DVSA not by the police
The Police don’t have to , there are weight sensors under some motorways , so DVSA know your weight when you are driving.
The law allows you to be over the legal limit as long as you heading to a public weighbridge with a set distance or radius from leaving where you got loaded from .
If pulled over by DVSA , they have portable weigh mats that go under your wheels .
Had someone tell me one day it was illegal to use the term “20tonner” when charging per load because an 8w muckshifter only carries 18 to 19t.
So our 7.5tonner isn’t a “4 tonner” because it carries 3.8 max?
Unusual to see police doing such road work any more.
I have a question though, are there any ministry axle weighers left, the few there were seem to have been removed ie Towcester and Dunchurch, i don’t know if the one up the A1 by the Worksop turn is still there.
Is it all now gross weights with the tractor/trailer being weighed separately if poor weight distribution suspected.
Just shows how long ago since i got check weighed, in over 40 years i doubt there’s been 5 occasions, and been fine every time.
Once in the 80’s my self and another driver (different lorry types) spent a day with a ministry boffin visiting various axle weighers to compare weights with the mobile weighing pads he was testing out, we’d be requested to try and get an overloaded axle or two by poor loading for test purposes. Did those pads ever get used in anger.
I’ve been checked a few times by those mobile weighing pads and was OK on all but one occasion where I was around 15 kgs over on the drive axle which they let slide 
It was near Kings Lynn going to Campbell’s in the mid 80’s, LOL the freridgerated trailer guy on Irish plates who was weighed in front of me wasn’t going anywhere, he had hanging beef in the fridge van accompanied by plate steel on the floor 
He was grossly over the axle limits.
Rikki-UK:
Just to be pedantic. the Police do not have the authority to weigh your vehicle, only to direct you to be weighed… unless they have reasonable grounds to suspect you are breaking criminal law- and before any one argues over weight is criminal law ! just look at the case law, for overweight vehicles the case law is bought by VOSA/DVSA not by the police
Not sure what it is you are being pedantic about here. The relevant legislation (S78 Road Traffic Act 1988) makes no mention of reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence is being committed before the power can be exercised.
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Back in the 80’s, I was running fish from Ullapool to Whitehaven and got stopped by a cop out in the middle of nowhere, no scales around, pulls me into a big lay-by and tells me to get into passenger seat.
He jumps in the drivers seat and gives it stick for the length of the lay-by, stops and says your weight feels ok, carry on.
True story
The French ministry use those mobile axle weighers a lot. They’re sometimes used at checkpoints in parking areas or peages. I’ve seen the used for trucks or white vans.
I’ll bet they pay for themselves pretty quck.
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The last time I was pulled onto an axle weigher was back in the 90’s, I was pulling a 30000ltr gp tank with 29 tonne of sulphuric acid on (around about 14000 odd litres), exuberant use of throttle and brake meant that after about 15 minutes he gave up trying to weigh it and just checked my paperwork instead.
Rikki-UK:
Just to be pedantic. the Police do not have the authority to weigh your vehicle, only to direct you to be weighed… unless they have reasonable grounds to suspect you are breaking criminal law- and before any one argues over weight is criminal law ! just look at the case law, for overweight vehicles the case law is bought by VOSA/DVSA not by the police
Completely correct, most officers don’t have a clue in regards to drivers hours regs etc… unless traffic like old Angus… however, Vosa could be handy … in a previous life, in Edmonton London there was a testing station if given attitude by a trucker he would be escorted there for vosa testing to inspect and then possible prosecution
Juddian:
Unusual to see police doing such road work any more.I have a question though, are there any ministry axle weighers left, the few there were seem to have been removed ie Towcester and Dunchurch, i don’t know if the one up the A1 by the Worksop turn is still there.
Is it all now gross weights with the tractor/trailer being weighed separately if poor weight distribution suspected.Just shows how long ago since i got check weighed, in over 40 years i doubt there’s been 5 occasions, and been fine every time.
Once in the 80’s my self and another driver (different lorry types) spent a day with a ministry boffin visiting various axle weighers to compare weights with the mobile weighing pads he was testing out, we’d be requested to try and get an overloaded axle or two by poor loading for test purposes. Did those pads ever get used in anger.
All the checkpoints that I have been in are all axle weigh bridges then you get your running total once all axles have been weighed
lancpudn:
LOL the freridgerated trailer guy on Irish plates who was weighed in front of me wasn’t going anywhere, he had hanging beef in the fridge van accompanied by plate steel on the floor
Congratulations on reviving one of the oldest driving myths/driver BS.
Muckaway:
lancpudn:
LOL the freridgerated trailer guy on Irish plates who was weighed in front of me wasn’t going anywhere, he had hanging beef in the fridge van accompanied by plate steel on the floorCongratulations on reviving one of the oldest driving myths/driver BS.
Still amazes me not only how many people actually do believe this story but how many spout it as fact because they reckon they witnessed it
lancpudn:
the freridgerated trailer guy on Irish plates who was weighed in front of me wasn’t going anywhere, he had hanging beef in the fridge van accompanied by plate steel on the floor
There’s more bull in your story than there was in his trailer.
switchlogic:
Muckaway:
lancpudn:
LOL the freridgerated trailer guy on Irish plates who was weighed in front of me wasn’t going anywhere, he had hanging beef in the fridge van accompanied by plate steel on the floorCongratulations on reviving one of the oldest driving myths/driver BS.
Still amazes me not only how many people actually do believe this story but how many spout it as fact because they reckon they witnessed it
And how the hell they are supposed to get steel plate in and out of a fridge
about 1980 or thereabouts,round about midnightu the hill i got stuck in the snow with the road recently being closed in front of me on the A69 at greenhead bank ■■ i think…where the speed camera is heading to hexam though i was heading for carlisle direction.cop with range rover was not leting anyone try to go up unless they were loaded for traction with him using a chain as a helper( obviously those days are long gone now).however,i digress,back to the story…this mad paddy 3 trucks back breezes up to the cop and offers to head up and lay the tracks for us to follow with the reasoning behind this heroic act being,that although 32 ton was the limit,he was grossing over 46 ton with paperwork to prove it,and so long as he got up,then we could all follow in the squashed snow tracks…plod let him get on with it on condition he didnt stop till he made the boat. i think some of these paddys sometimes ran just a wee bitty heavy. 
it wasnt uncommon to be running 20 ton of steel plates with 20 pallets of whatever on the top.with me it was mostly tins of food,r coca cola.completely nailed to the road.
Franglais:
The French ministry use those mobile axle weighers a lot. They’re sometimes used at checkpoints in parking areas or peages. I’ve seen the used for trucks or white vans.
I’ll bet they pay for themselves pretty quck.Sent from my GT-S7275R using Tapatalk
Seen them at the larger Peage points, the ones with the truck parking bays just after the barriers…
dieseldog999:
about 1980 or thereabouts,round about midnightu the hill i got stuck in the snow with the road recently being closed in front of me on the A69 at greenhead bank ■■ i think…where the speed camera is heading to hexam though i was heading for carlisle direction.cop with range rover was not leting anyone try to go up unless they were loaded for traction with him using a chain as a helper( obviously those days are long gone now).however,i digress,back to the story…this mad paddy 3 trucks back breezes up to the cop and offers to head up and lay the tracks for us to follow with the reasoning behind this heroic act being,that although 32 ton was the limit,he was grossing over 46 ton with paperwork to prove it,and so long as he got up,then we could all follow in the squashed snow tracks…plod let him get on with it on condition he didnt stop till he made the boat. i think some of these paddys sometimes ran just a wee bitty heavy.it wasnt uncommon to be running 20 ton of steel plates with 20 pallets of whatever on the top.with me it was mostly tins of food,r coca cola.completely nailed to the road.
Picked up a tilt at Calais that had been loaded in Norway with cast iron castings a few months back over 51t gross on the scales. Another trailer was there to take the excess but with no forklift and after handballing over 2t off on my own left it at (i think) 48900…