German police officers have described a lorry with a damaged trailer frame, unsecure cargo and half of its brake discs torn as a “rolling time bomb”. Another 32 vehicles that were also found to have technical or cargo security issues during checks on the German A30 motorway last week.
German police carried out a lorry control campaign last Thursday on the A30 motorway near Bissendorf. Half of all the lorries examined showed serious defects; in 13 cases, the vehicles were banned from further travel; in one case the trailer was seized.
However, there was one HGV in particular that raised the officers’ eyebrows. The lorry, loaded with several forklifts and with a total weight of more than 30 tons, was found to have three brake discs torn out of six. Also, the frame of the trailer was in an unacceptable condition in many places, what’s more, the cargo was inadequately secured.
It was a “ticking time bomb that had to be withdrawn from traffic before something tragic happened” said Marco Ellermann, spokesman for the Osnabrück Police Department.
A total of 66 lorries were checked on Thursday – 33 of them were deemed to have defects that made them unroadworthy.
The violations found included eleven technical defects, seven due to overloading – in some cases 30% over the actual load limit.
Inadequate load securing was found in another seven cases. For example, a semitrailer lorry loaded with 15 tons of steel mesh had only six tensioning belts instead of the legally required 46.
The police collected approx 3,000 euros in security deposits for future fines and initiated asset recovery proceedings worth several thousand euros.
Photo credit @ Polizeidirektion Osnabrück
