The Motor Vehicles (Approval) Regulations 2001

Criteria for determining design weights

8.  For the purposes of section 54(2) of the 1988 Act, where an application is made pursuant to regulation 6, the criteria for determining, as design weights, the axle weights and gross weights which in the opinion of the Secretary of State should not be exceeded in the case of a vehicle to which these Regulations apply are as follows—

(a) the design of the vehicle, its construction and equipment and the stresses to which it is likely to be subject when used on a road;

(b) any information which is available about the weight which a vehicle of that type was designed by the manufacturer to carry when used on a road; and

(c) any information obtained from an examination of a vehicle of that type or a similar type with a view to ascertaining whether at the time of the examination, it complied with any requirement prescribed under section 54 of the 1988 Act and applicable to it.