The associate minister of transport Michael Woodhouse has signed into law a range of amendments to laws relating to large and overweight trucks.
The amendments to overweight rules will create graduated offences, with appropriate penalties, for breaches by permit holders, and increase the levels of fines for overweight vehicles if the vehicle does not have a permit.
The NZ Transport industry worked with the industry on the amendments and have made ‘refinements’ including the addition to the rule of weighing tolerances for vehicles operating under permits rather than, as proposed, modifying the existing tolerances in the regulations, a larger weighing tolerance of 1000kg for load-sharing axle sets (500 kg had been proposed) and the schedule setting out the requirements for permits was further clarified.
For HPMV, the rule changes include the creation of two categories of conditions for overweight and HPMV permits – critical conditions, which are specified in the amendment rule, and additional conditions.
Other changes are:
- require the overweight indivisible load permit to be carried in the vehicle and to be produced on demand to an enforcement officer
- replace the prescribed permit form with a schedule of requirements for permit forms
- require that a permit identifies the vehicle it applies to and the operator who can use it, and make any permit that has been altered without authority invalid
- clarify the mass limits that apply to a vehicle operating under a HPMV permit
- allow a vehicle with only one motor-driven axle to be issued with a permit to vary from a specified length dimension limit if the gross mass does not exceed 39,000 kg
- correct two minor errors in the principal Rule (the definition of ‘load-sharing axle set’ and the dimensions of hazard warning panels)
- provide weighing tolerances for vehicles operating on overweight or HPMV permits, so they can exceed specified mass limits by small amounts to allow for variables that affect the accuracy of loading
- remove the permit condition that causes a permit to be voided for breach of any condition.
