eddoakley Posted August 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2016 Simply because the law states it is an offense to drive an overloaded vehicle on the road. The penalties for doing, depending on how much the vehicle was overloaded, range from a sliding scale of fixed penalty notices through to delayed or immediate prohibition notices. You, being under 10% overloaded fell within the lowest category and were therefore dealt with by means of a £100 fixed penalty notice. The police/DVSA obviously looked kindly on you and followed the DVSA sanctions policy by not issuing you with a prohibition notice. However, at this stage you will have been aware that you had committed an offense and any sensible person would have realized that to continue the journey overloaded could result in you being pulled over again for the same offense. By not issuing you with a prohibition notice and therefore by default, allowing you on your way was not carte blanch authority to continue your journey and thus continue to break the law. Rather, it allowed you to move to somewhere close and convenient to correct the overload. I actually had a conversation with the officer about the rest of the journey, he knew that I had at least 100 miles to go to offload and told me to carry on, not to unload some of the cargo where "safe and convenient" There are some replies that have explained a little with the "sliding scale" of fines but I still think that to just send me on my way minus £100 really served no purpose. It wouldn't make me find a weighbridge the next time I load a van ( as has been said before 99% of the time it's just down to judgement) and it certainly didn't affect the rest of my journey. It seems to me that all it did was to go towards that officers wages. Edd Simply because the law states it is an offense to drive an overloaded vehicle on the road. The penalties for doing, depending on how much the vehicle was overloaded, range from a sliding scale of fixed penalty notices through to delayed or immediate prohibition notices. You, being under 10% overloaded fell within the lowest category and were therefore dealt with by means of a £100 fixed penalty notice. The police/DVSA obviously looked kindly on you and followed the DVSA sanctions policy by not issuing you with a prohibition notice. However, at this stage you will have been aware that you had committed an offense and any sensible person would have realized that to continue the journey overloaded could result in you being pulled over again for the same offense. By not issuing you with a prohibition notice and therefore by default, allowing you on your way was not carte blanch authority to continue your journey and thus continue to break the law. Rather, it allowed you to move to somewhere close and convenient to correct the overload. I actually had a conversation with the officer about the rest of the journey, he knew that I had at least 100 miles to go to offload and told me to carry on, not to unload some of the cargo where "safe and convenient" There are some replies that have explained a little with the "sliding scale" of fines but I still think that to just send me on my way minus £100 really served no purpose. It wouldn't make me find a weighbridge the next time I load a van ( as has been said before 99% of the time it's just down to judgement) and it certainly didn't affect the rest of my journey. It seems to me that all it did was to go towards that officers wages. Edd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon R Posted August 9, 2016 Report Share Posted August 9, 2016 Why did they pull your van over in the first place? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walshie Posted August 9, 2016 Report Share Posted August 9, 2016 You're right about the sliding scale. I used to work for a lighting company that used to move a lot of stuff around in flight cases, which don't take up much room but weigh a lot. One of our drivers got pulled driving a 7.5 tonner for being a lot over. Not only did we have to send another truck to take the excess weight off him, he got a fine of several thousand pounds and the company was fined even more than that. Consider yourself lucky i reckon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddoakley Posted August 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2016 Why did they pull your van over in the first place? No idea. Was never told why and I never asked. As I never suspected there would be any problem with the vehicle I wasn't concerned. I case you are aski g if it looked overloaded then that was not the case. When chatting to the officer he agreed that the van "didn't look as though it was packed full". I have seen over loaded vehicles, driven a few that looked low and even unloaded stuff on site when I thought it was overloaded but would never imagine how little weight a Luton can actually carry. However I was told by someone who knew someone who's mother lived next door to someone.......blah blah....that there is an officer on that stretch of motorway that likes to pull in vehicles which have tail lifts as he knows that alone takes up a huge part of the weight allowance. Edd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Posted August 9, 2016 Report Share Posted August 9, 2016 Why did they pull your van over in the first place? Wrongly spaced reg plate? http://forums.pigeonwatch.co.uk/forums/topic/329402-ticket-for-wrongly-spaced-reg-plate/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddoakley Posted August 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2016 Wrongly spaced reg plate? http://forums.pigeonwatch.co.uk/forums/topic/329402-ticket-for-wrongly-spaced-reg-plate/ Hahaha 😃 If it had been in one of my own vehicles with those plates I would be kicking myself and thinking that the only reason I was stopped was because of the plate but it was a hire vehicle so no plates to blame. While on that subject I don't remember if I ever updated that. Anyone who remembers the thread might be interested to know that I had a letter from dvla telling me that I was a naughty boy and not to do it again and that I had to send them a pic with the plate spaced "properly" Edd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaun4860 Posted August 9, 2016 Report Share Posted August 9, 2016 Anyone who remembers the thread might be interested to know that I had a letter from dvla telling me that I was a naughty boy and not to do it again and that I had to send them a pic with the plate spaced "properly" Edd Normally you would get a form telling you to rectify the spacing and then go to an MOT station for them to check it, You would then get a piece of paper off them telling the Police you had done so and were now legal, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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