xamtex:
surely if you weigh it and its overweight before you leave the yard then you can have no defense if caught on the road overweight■■?
why would you take an overloaded vehicle on the road??you know its a fine? some people deserve all they get?
maybe robk doesn’t have the benefit of a weighbridge at his yard you obviously have access to a weighbridge the way you state your criticism but not everybody has that benefit
according to his o p he knew it was overweight near 45t…told the bloke in the office… but took it up the road anyway?or am i reading his o p wrong?
xamtex:
surely if you weigh it and its overweight before you leave the yard then you can have no defense if caught on the road overweight■■?
why would you take an overloaded vehicle on the road??you know its a fine? some people deserve all they get?
maybe robk doesn’t have the benefit of a weighbridge at his yard you obviously have access to a weighbridge the way you state your criticism but not everybody has that benefit
according to his o p he knew it was overweight near 45t…told the bloke in the office… but took it up the road anyway?or am i reading his o p wrong?
Which part of my post at the top of this page are you having difficulties understanding?
maurice:
The 1 tonne tolerance is completely universal for all trucks, not just stuff that might get wet. And even if you slap them round the face with your weighbridge ticket proving you knew it was nearly 1 tonne over there is absolutely [zb] all they can do about it. They will give you a patronising lecture about it but that’s the main reason they do their job, [zb] ‘em.
It’s there in black and white in the handy VOSA price list. It has to be over 1 tonne to get your £60 fine, no exceptions.
Rob K:
Yes of course, I didn’t engage brain before replying in my last post. Wonder what GB has to say about his 46 t then. I could put my usual “all VOSA are a bunch of [zb]s and don’t know their arse from their elbow” but as he had the courtesy to reply then I’ll restrain myself just this once.
Those contradicting posts confused me as well. Interesting to note that the only person getting the information incorrect was the VOSA guy which just confirms what we all knew about them.
Who is the VOSA man?
Seriously? It tells you who this one is* in the thread.
*There is more than one as members on here.
But I can’t find a post with the username Bryan so I’m assuming he is under another name, any ideas?
maurice:
The 1 tonne tolerance is completely universal for all trucks, not just stuff that might get wet. And even if you slap them round the face with your weighbridge ticket proving you knew it was nearly 1 tonne over there is absolutely [zb] all they can do about it. They will give you a patronising lecture about it but that’s the main reason they do their job, [zb] ‘em.
It’s there in black and white in the handy VOSA price list. It has to be over 1 tonne to get your £60 fine, no exceptions.
Rob K:
Yes of course, I didn’t engage brain before replying in my last post. Wonder what GB has to say about his 46 t then. I could put my usual “all VOSA are a bunch of [zb]s and don’t know their arse from their elbow” but as he had the courtesy to reply then I’ll restrain myself just this once.
Those contradicting posts confused me as well. Interesting to note that the only person getting the information incorrect was the VOSA guy which just confirms what we all knew about them.
Who is the VOSA man?
Seriously? It tells you who this one is* in the thread.
*There is more than one as members on here.
But I can’t find a post with the username Bryan so I’m assuming he is under another name, any ideas?
Yes Brian is aka rslicker, but he isn’t a VOSA man anymore, he is gamekeeper turned poacher.
To set the record straight; firstly an apology to Rob K and anybody else that has been confused by my appalling maths - yes it did take me three attempts to get my O-level in the subject, never did see the point of circle theorems or differential calculus. In this case I was just plain incapable of adding 1 to 44 and getting the correct answer of 45
If you think about the train weight of a six axle artic plated at 44 tonnes then 5% of that would be 2.2 tonnes. The argument would go that if VOSA and the Police used a straight tolerance of 5% then the vehicle would be weighing 46.2 tonnes before action was taken against the driver / operator. However, the 1 tonne tolerance acts first, in this instance, so if the combination exceeded 45 tonnes then prohibition / prosecution would take place, even though the 5% tolerance has not been breached.
A different scenario would be a drive axle rated at 10.5 tonnes. If you add a tonne for tolerance then action would not be taken unless the axle was found to exceed 11.5 tonnes. Unfortunately 5% of 10.5 tonnes is 525 kg, so action would be taken if the axle weighed more than 11.025 tonnes. In this instance the 1 tonne tolerance has not been breached, but the 5% tolerance has - yes, I did use a calculator to check the figures.
As has been said, the 5% and 1 tonne thing is a tolerance, it does not stop a prosecution being taken where the authorised weights are exceeded, even by the smallest amount. Overloading is an absolute offence. There are two defences allowed;
you were travelling to the nearest available weighbridge to check weigh the load.
you were travelling to the nearest suitable place, from the weighbridge, to remove excess load having weighed the vehicle and found it to be overloaded.
Anything else is mitigation, it may reduce your fine but you are still guilty, whether you loaded the vehicle or somebody else did it.
A word of warning about the 5% and 1 tonne tolerance. If the ‘design weight’ of the vehicle is exceeded there is no tolerance. This particularly applies to 3.5 tonne vehicles and 7.5 tonne vehicles where the design weight is the weight shown on the plates. You may still be allowed the 5% (which is 175Kg for a 3.5 t van and 375kg for a 7.5t) but that is at the discretion of the individual officer.
geebee45:
Hope that clarifies things for everybody
It does indeed, thanks. And absolute offence or not, I still think I’d ‘get off it’ in court in the circumstances I detailed above unless it was a complete and utter tool for a magistrate/judge - even more so with a decent brief who would quite easily argue that none of us were born with psychic abilities.
you obviously have access to a weighbridge the way you state your criticism but not everybody has that benefit
I could put my usual “all VOSA are a bunch of [zb]s and don’t know their arse from their elbow” but as he had the courtesy to reply then I’ll restrain myself just this once. 
