Overloading no laughing matter!

Tis the season of good will, joy and merriment.

And certainly over the years we have gathered some axle weighing stories which, with the passage of time, might seem amusing.

There was the captain of a ro ro ferry who insisted that the axle weighbridge couldn’t possibly be right because he knew how heavy his load was because of how far down in the water his ship was.

Or the story of an artic stopped many years ago weighing over 90 tonnes, the heaviest overload recorded in the UK allegedly. That one was contravening all sorts of food regulations as well with sheet steel loaded beneath hanging beef!

Another artic steadfastly refused to stop for the authorities at a weight check and when eventually pulled by the police was found to be racing to his destination because he had onboard full load of fish in a non-refrigerated vehicle!

All of those are serious issues though.

Axtec Dynamic Keeping Vehicles Legal Whatever the Season

Overloading affects all of the major components of the vehicle; steering, brakes, suspension, clutch and tyres. The cost of repairing those would be quite steep. But imagine the consequences of that 90 tonne vehicle being involved in an accident.

That would be no laughing matter.

Overloading though can be avoided and quite cost effectively.

The range of systems available is extensive as is pricing. But as with all things you only get what you pay for.

Cheap is also often not the best option. Frequently the best system for a given application is dictated by what needs to be weighed, how often, where and for what purpose.

A fleet of vans on multi-drop work wouldn’t best be served by a fixed axle weighbridge in the yard and onboard load indicators would be an expensive choice for a fleet of artics taking full loads from a DC.

So if you’d like some information on which system is best for your needs we’d be happy to hear from you.

Advice on the correct axle weighing system is free of charge from Axtec.

Now that really is something to bring joy and goodwill.

Enforcement DEFINITELY not a 9 to 5 job.

Operating goods vehicles is rarely a 9 to 5 job. 

Overnight deliveries are very much part of the job and in some industries essential and some parts of the economy would shut down if it were not for night time deliveries.

Some in the industry though believe that enforcement only takes place during the hours of daylight and that operating at night keeps them safe from prosecution.

We know though that is far from the truth.

We were chatting to a white van man the other day who told us a tale of being stopped with an overload. One of the enormous number of vans which the statistics tell us are overloaded on the roads every day.

This guy was delivering sundries to takeaway restaurants and does so when their customers are open which of course is during the evening. He was incredulous that the weighbridge site was open so late, as was his boss.

His boss was also incredulous about the amount of product that had to be removed to get the vehicle legal. Almost 50% of the goods on the vehicle according to the driver.

Even allowing for a little exaggeration, it seems that the van was seriously overloaded.

In a competitive market, letting a customer down can be disastrous.

Axtec OnBoard protecting vans from overloads.

With a van check weighed at a location more than an hour from base, a driver now missing deliveries due to the hold up plus having to find another van and driver to take the excess load, the cost of sorting the problem out was enormous.

For many van operators overloading is accidental. For those trying to remain legal but who might make an honest mistake, a system like the Axtec OnBoard Load Indicator would help solve that problem.

However, given the amount of weight removed from the vehicle described above it’s hard not to conclude that the overloading was deliberate and probably a regular occurrence. And maybe the company thought that operating at night would be safe with little chance of getting stopped.

Just like some transport operators though, the enforcement authorities also work anti social hours and the risk of getting caught late at night very much exists.