Road Traffic Act 1972

160 Weighing of motor vehicles

(1) Subject to any regulations made by the Secretary of State, it shall be lawful for a person authorised by a highway authority, or for a 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 guilty of an offence:

Provided that it shall not be lawful for a person or 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 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 the [1960 c. 16.] Road Traffic Act 1960 or an examiner appointed under section 56 of this Act or any of the Secretary of State's officers authorised by him in that behalf may at any time, on production of his authority, exercise with respect to the weighing of goods vehicles all such powers as are under the foregoing provisions of this section exercisable by a 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 and the Secretary of State of references respectively to the Secretary of State and the Lord Chief Justice of England or, as the case may be, the Lord President of the Court of Session.