Weight Sensors In Road

[DeeElle]

I was recently stopped by Police for my vehicle being overweight on the westbound M62 just after J21-Milnrow. My rear axle was <10% over-loaded (3.5 tonne, LWB van), determined at the weighbridge at J20.
The Police were stationary as I passed them & were then on to me immediately. I wondered afterwards whether they randomly stop-checked or if there was already a predicting factor that the vehicle was overweight.
My Google research led to this:

http://www.transportsfriend.org/enforcement/wims.h...

Are these now in use on our roads?

[donz29]

So 204 vehicles were identified as being over weight and received prohibition orders which 'saved the equivalent road wear of over half a million saloon car journeys'.

So an HGV causes over 2000 times more damage to the road than an average saloon car? Or are they factoring in the additional average mileage of an HGV over a car?

Lies, damn lies and statistics....

[agent006]

I would imagine the stance of a fully loaded or overloaded LWB van would be fairly obvious to an experienced eye. Certainly enough to warrant stopping and weighing.

[PH lurker]

I know that some overloaded vehicles can be a problem when braking in a crash and so on.
But the road wear argument seems a bit odd to me. Why would a big Panel van (3.5t) weighing (4.2t) cause more road wear than two vehicles doing the same run like two smaller panel vans (2.1t). And wouldn't it weigh more overall as to carry 2t on a large van might mean 3.5t over one 20 mile run. But with two small vans taking 1t each it might be 2.5t over 40 miles. And a bigger vehicle might weigh 4t overall which would travel 20miles.
Sorry if this doesn't make sense, I can't think straight at the moment.

[s p a c e m a n]

The weight in motion stuff has been used for years in London, it wouldn't surprise me to find that they have been sticking it a VOSA checkpoints around the country. I doubt that's what got you pulled though, small stuff like vans and 7,5t normally stick out like a sore thumb when they are overloaded specially when just on one axle, it's just that the police rarely bother.

[chilistrucker]

i know they have another 1 hidden on the clockwise m25, around j8
vosa normally hide near by, and there is a checkpoint at the bottom of the hill at j9.

[anonymous-user]

They are dotted about all over the motorway network, they're used to be an article on the HA website until they upgraded it, now upgraded it's nowhere near as useful for finding stuff.

[Humper]

Possibly pulled you cos the arse of the van was dragging along the ground?