A DRIVER who took a lorry with a maximum weight of more than four times the permitted limit across Cawood Bridge has been fined.

Gary Stephen Degg, 44, was one of two drivers who separately took lorries that were too heavy across the bridge which has a maximum weight limit of 7.5 tonnes because of the way it is constructed, to protect it from damage, York magistrates heard.

Degg, of Cleveland Square, Newark, and Gareth Gibson, 32, of Tennyson Way, Kidderminster, both pleaded guilty by letter to breaking the weight restriction on the bridge.

Degg was fined £225 with a £30 statutory surcharge and £142.35 costs. In his letter, he said he didn’t know the area and had been following his satnav.

York Press:

He had left his load at South Milford, so his lorry weighed 12 tonnes as he went across the bridge, he wrote, adding he couldn’t turn round when he saw the weight limit because there was a line of traffic behind him.

Gibson was fined £78 with £142.35 costs and a £30 statutory surcharge. He was driving a lorry with a maximum weight of 15 tonnes and did not give any mitigation in his letter.