Keeping rogue hauliers off the road!

We’re delighted to have has once again secured a four-year contract to maintain and certify the DVSA’s network of 55 roadside enforcement weighbridges.

We’ll be doing all the routine maintenance and calibrations using our own purpose designed axle weighbridge calibration vehicle, a unique tractor and trailer combination that means the job can be done by one vehicle instead of four. We’ll also be surveying and maintaining the flat weighbridge approaches, so important for weighing multi-axle vehicles accurately.

Under the contract we’ve had to maintain a variety of different systems. That means we can look after any type of axle weighbridge to a very high standard.

Keeping rogue operators off the road is very important for a number of reasons and we’re pleased to be doing our bit.

Not only is an overloaded vehicle extremely dangerous but the damage caused to the UK’s infrastructure costs all of us many times over. And it’s not only the damage to the road surface that we all have to pay up for.

Dynamic Axle Weighbridge Under Test

An operator who overloads his vehicles is taking business away from you. He is trying to obtain an unfair advantage. He is under cutting your rates by operating illegally.

Fair competition is a good thing as it drives companies to do things more efficiently but unfair competition is exactly that – unfair. With margins tight and profits hard to come by, losing work to a competitor doing it cheaper by breaking the law is something that needs to be tackled.

Inadvertent overloads can happen and there is leeway built into the tolerances of the enforcement axle weighbridge Code of Practice to allow for that. It is highly unlikely that anyone is going to be prosecuted for a minor overload.

But even minor overloads can lead to a prosecution if a haulier does it consistently. A while ago, one haulier thought he was being very clever by overloading his vehicles just within what he thought was the tolerance allowable.

When weighing his vehicles, the authorities found that every time they were overweight by a small but consistent margin. It was clear that this haulier was doing it deliberately and trying to gain an unfair advantage so a prosecution followed.

So our new contract with DVSA using specialist equipment and know how means we’ll be able to keep the network of enforcement axle weighbridges up and running.

And keeping overloaded vehicles and those unfair competitors off the road.