Damage To Roads By Overloaded Vehicles

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31836, 14 November 1968, Page 26

Damage To Roads By Overloaded Vehicles

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, November 13. Transport operators must bear the blame for much of the damage done to roads by overloaded heavy vehicles, the Minister of Works (Mr Allen) told the annual conference of the New Zealand division of the Institute of Transport, which opened today in Auckland.

In the year ended March 31, 1968, the National Roads Board spent slom out of a total highways expenditure of s32m on maintenance work alone, Mr Allen said. “This excessive amount on maintenance may be largely attributed to overloaded heavy vehicles, many of them thumping the roads to pieces by travelling too fast,” Mr Allen said.

“The operator we are concerned about is the one who persistently overloads, and thereby makes for himself an immoderate profit at a substantial cost to the community,” he said. Mr Allen said the board's engineers could prove an eight-ton axle load was twice as destrucive as a seven-ton load: and a nine-ton axle load was four times as destructive. “Of the 10,000 drivers prosecuted last year for overloading, about 40 per cent had vehicles exceeding the maximum load - weight allowed, by 10 per cent or more,” Mr Allen said. As an example, Mr Allen said a 22-mile length of State highway 33 in the Bay of Plenty cost about 52500 a mile a year in general maintenance —“more than double the normal cost.” “Regrettably some of the worst offenders are Government departments and local bodies. I must warn, however, that these organisations should not expect to escape the consequences of their actions,” Mr Allen said.