Tougher policing reins in 22 000 overloaded trucks

Gauteng tightens screws
Leonard Neill
MORE THAN 22 000 heavy vehicles weighed in at Gauteng traffic control centres during the six months ending July this year were found to be overloaded, and owners of half of these have been charged.
This is part of the province's tougher control measures aimed at curbing road damage estimated at R100million a year caused by overloaded vehicles, says MEC for Public Transport and Roads, Khabisi Mosunkutu.
His department, together with Johannesburg Metro and local policing authorities, have produced records which show that the number of overloaded vehicles in the province increased from 14 800 in 1999 to 64 951 last year. Intensified campaigning resulted in a total of 86 140 vehicles being weighed in Gauteng during the six months ending July this year, which was an increase of 30% on the entire figure for 2001.
This, said Mosunkutu, highlighted the value of control centres which came into operation in January, and which accounted for 57 000 of the vehicles tested in the period under review. The latest opened on the N3 at Heidelberg on August 19.
"Research shows that a vehicle overloaded by 50% reduces the life of a national road from its expected 20 years to half that time. A provincial road under the same stress can be reduced from a life expectancy of 20 years to as little as three to four years," he said.
Three hundred traffic officers and a number of senior public prosecutors were specially trained in the complexities of vehicle overloading in order to speed up cases against offending vehicle owners, he said.