LOADING OF VEHICLES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22243, 18 October 1935, Page 15

LOADING OF VEHICLES

TEST METHOD CHALLENGED ACCURACY OF LOADOMETERS [by telegraph OWN correspondent] TE AROHA, Thursday When a number of traffic cases involving charges of overloading wore being heard in the Magistrate's Court to-day, the accuracy of the traffic inspector's loadometer was challenged by two or three of the defendants, one of whom claimed that soon after the alleged offence his load had been put over a weighbridge, which registered a different weight from that recorded by the loadometer.

"To challenge the accuracy of these loadometers," said the magistrate, Mr. F. 11. Levien, "is a frequent method of defence in theso cases. There must be reasonable limits to the standard of accuracy required. No Court would require a traffic inspector to have his meter tested within 24 hours of every case, for the regulations governing the use of theso meters require that they bo tested for accuracy at reasonably frequent intervals. I have had several cases where offenders similarly stated that thoy had checked their loads over a weighbridge and recorded a weight different from the loadometer. It is then open for the prosecution to go further and require that the weighbridge itself be checked, after which the accuracy of the method of checking the weighbridge could be challenged in turn, and so on ad infinitum. I think that for this type of offence wo can safely take the loadometer as a reasonably reliable guide."