Overloading penalties should be too high to warrant the risk - Omar

THE DEPARTMENT of Transport has engaged in a series of pilot projects with various provincial transport departments and the National Roads Agency to develop a tightly-policed, corridor-based approach to bring overloading under control. These range from public-private partnerships to upgrade, maintain and securely manage static traffic control centres and weigh stations to a dramatic increase in the severity of sentences handed down by magistrates both in terms of financial penalties and impoundment and confiscation of vehicles. But Omar said the justice system alone shouldn't be relied on. "We can introduce a form of compulsory self-regulation that requires operations in the bulk goods sectors known to be offending most regularly to set up weighbridges at their own cost point of origin or point of arrival, depending on the type of cargo. Specialist enforcement teams can then regulate and stop trucks to check whether the load being carried corresponds with the certificate issued at the weighbridges. We would not have to catch every truck operating with a falsely documented load because the penalty would simply be suspension or total withdrawal of the operator's card. In other words, the operational penalties for known and systematic overloading must be pushed so high as to make the risk not worth taking," he said. On the financial penalties side, Omar wants to set up a regime of user charges that penalises overloaders according to the extent of the overload and the distance travelled from origin, independent of the success or otherwise of any subsequent prosecution. Code of Conduct "Apart from setting these charges at punitively high rates, we could also tie them in to the code of conduct and a compliance review system. I know very well that the majority of operators are bitterly opposed to overloaders and are as concerned as we are to create the necessary level playing field for fair competition. I see a fully-defined regulatory and self-regulatory regime fully signed up by all parties by the end of 2002 at the latest," said Omar.