No Conviction for Fail to Comply with Mass Requirements

Our client is an Infrastructure Construction company supporting Tier 1 Organisations and Operators on Major Projects across New South Wales. 

At around 11:30 am on 22 May 2025, a heavy vehicle owned by our client was stopped by authorised officers of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator. The vehicle was being driven by our client’s employee.

Upon the interception and inspection of the vehicle, the vehicle was found to be over the legally permitted mass for the second axle group (16.50 tonnes). After applying the applicable mass adjustment, our client’s heavy vehicle was assessed at 19.85 tonnes, exceeding the permitted limit by 3.35 tonnes.

The company was charged with the offence of fail to comply with the mass requirements without reasonable excuse. The maximum penalty for this offence was over $50,000 for a company. 

We immediately commenced working on the case by obtaining an affidavit from our client setting out the circumstances of the offence, the company’s policies and procedures as well as what the company’s next steps were to ensure compliance in the future. We also requested supporting documentation provided by our client to their employees about the processes involved around managing the weight.

The affidavit and supporting company documents demonstrated that our client’s employee was negligent and solely at fault. In accordance with company policy, the employee was the responsible operator at the time and had accepted that they had willingly overloaded the truck without any instruction from our client. Multiple methods were also available for the employee to assess and keep check the vehicle’s weight which they ignored. The employees also had ample time to tip any excess load.

We then tendered the affidavit and made lengthy oral submissions of our findings at court. 

In the result, we were able to persuade the Court to dismiss the case pursuant to Section 10. This means our client did not have to pay any fine at all and received no conviction.