Jeffery James Spinks blasted by magistrate for overloading his prime mover

A truckie who overloaded his prime mover after estimating the weight, claimed that he felt safer driving on the dirt road.

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A TRUCKIE who overloaded his prime mover instead of lightening the back end load, claimed he felt safer while driving on a dirt road.

Jeffery James Spinks, 45, was hauling gypsum from a Winton mine to a drop extraction site 200km away on October 29, 2019.

The Townsville Magistrates Court heard inspectors intercepted Spinks driving his road train towing four semi-trailers and weighed the vehicle.

It was determined that Spinks had two severe risk breaches, indicating he had overloaded by more than 120 per cent.

Prosecutor for Transport and Main Roads Peter Rainbird said the first truck bucket was overloaded by three tonnes, weighing in at six tonnes.

Jeffery James Spinks was fined $4000 for six counts of fail to comply with mass requirements applying to heavy vehicle or components.

“Mr Spinks indicated to inspectors he had loaded the containers himself and he didn’t have any way of checking the weight before driving so he was estimating,” Mr Rainbird said.

“He indicated that he had deliberately put a little bit more extra weight on the dry axle due to the overall weight of the load, he felt like he needed extra weight on that axle or else the tyres might end up losing traction.”

Spinks pleaded guilty to six counts of fail to comply with mass requirements applying to heavy vehicle or components.

Defence barrister Rowan Pack said his client attributed some of the extra weight to the weather conditions.

“It had been raining that day and he found the road was a little bit sticky as he was driving that day and he was anxious to get loaded quickly and get out,” he said.

“The following day when he came to unload the gypsum he tilted the trailers vertically and quite a lot of gypsum remained stuck in the body of the truck and that lead him to believe the gypsum was damp and the dampness could have contributed to the weight.”

Magistrate Ross Mack told Spinks overloading trucks depreciated the road a lot quicker and caused potholes.

“The people who use (the roads), it is just so vital for them and it is just so irritating with it detoriates,” he said.

“It takes a lot longer for things to get fixed out there because there is no money to fix it.”

Spinks was fined $4000 and ordered to pay $97 in court costs.

Convictions were recorded.

Originally published as Jeffery James Spinks blasted by magistrate for overloading his prime mover