TYRE PRESSURES ON TRUCK

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27073, 23 June 1953, Page 10

TYRE PRESSURES ON TRUCK

CHARGE DISMISSED BY MAGISTRATE

STATUS OF RAKAIA NOT ESTABLISHED

A charge against the New Zealand Express Company, Ltd., of exceeding the allowable tyre pressure for a heavy motor vehicle was dismissed by Mr E. A. Lee, S.M., in the Ashburton Magistrate’s Court yesterday on the grounds that two objections raised by counsel for the defendant company (Mr J. R. L. Campbell, of Christchurch) were fatal to the information laid .by the Transport Department. Traffic Officer R. W. Fox, who appeared for the Transport Department, said he had stopped a truck owned and operated by the defendant company on the Main South road at Rakaia. It was carrying a load of about a ton, and the tyre pressures on the rear axle were 85, 90, 85 and 901 b to the square inch. The maximum pressure permitted on each of the four tyres was 751 b to the square inch.

Mr Campbell, in moving for a dismissal, said that the information disclosed no offence, nor did the evidence, which had not shown the alleged offence to have been committed outside a borough of more than 6000 persons as required by the regulation. It was necessary to show that Rakaia was somewhere (“neither can we take notice judicially, that Bedford row is in Middlesex”) and it was also necessary to produce - a Government statistician’s certificate as proof of population. Neither had been done. In support of his claim Mr Campbell produced precedents dating as far back as 1814, and in London, 1821, and as recently as 1953 at Blenheim Court.

“Have you anything to say, inspector?” asked the Magistrate. “There is nothing I can say, sir,” replied Traffic Officer Fox. “Both objections are fatal to the information and the case is therefore dismissed,” said Mr Lee.