Road Traffic Act 1960

224 Weighing of motor vehicles

(1) Subject to any regulations made by the appropriate Minister, it shall be lawful for a person authorised by a highway authority, or for a police constable authorised on behalf of a highway authority by a police authority or a chief officer of police, on production of his authority, to require the person in charge of a motor vehicle to allow the vehicle or any trailer drawn thereby to be weighed, either laden or unladen, and the weight transmitted to the road by any parts of the vehicle or trailer in contact with the road to be tested, and for that purpose to proceed to a weighbridge or other machine for weighing vehicles; and if a person in charge of a motor vehicle refuses or neglects to comply with any such requirement, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, or in the case of a second or subsequent conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months:

Provided that it shall not be lawful for a person or police constable so authorised to require the person in charge of the motor vehicle to unload the vehicle or trailer, or to cause or allow it to be unloaded, for the purpose of its being weighed unladen.

(2) If at the time when the requirement is made the vehicle is more than one mile from the weighbridge or other machine, and the weight is found to be within the limits authorised by law the highway authority on whose behalf the requirement is made shall pay, in respect of loss occasioned, such amount as in default of agreement may be determined by a single arbitrator agreed upon by the parties, or in default of agreement appointed by the Minister or, where the requirement is made in Scotland, by the Secretary of State.

(3) Where a motor vehicle or trailer is weighed under this section, a certificate of weight shall be given to the person in charge of the vehicle, and the certificate so given shall exempt the motor vehicle and the trailer, if any, from being weighed so long as it is during the continuance of the same journey carrying the same load.

(4) A certifying officer appointed under Part III of this Act or an examiner appointed under Part IV thereof may at any time, on production of his authority, exercise with respect to the weighing of goods vehicles (within the meaning of the said Part IV) all such powers as are under the foregoing provisions of this section exercisable by a police constable authorised as therein mentioned with respect to the weighing of motor vehicles and trailers, and the said provisions shall apply accordingly with the substitution, in subsection (2), for references to the highway authority on whose behalf the requirement is made, the Minister and the Secretary of State, of references respectively to the Minister, the Lord Chief Justice of England and the Lord President of the Court of Session.

(5) In the application of this section to England and Wales " police authority" has the same meaning as in the Police Pensions Act, 1921, and in the application of this section to Scotland that expression has the same meaning as in the Police (Scotland) Act, 1956.