Granite carriers threaten to fight back Road traffic officials have been cracking down on heavy road hauliers transporting granite blocks to Durban Harbour.
The traffic police say that many of these rigs are overloaded and are a major cause of the road system deteriorating. In a recent stoppage police found one truck to be overloaded by a massive 30 tons, more than two thirds over it legal capacity, and provincial traffic officials claim this sort of overloading is no exception.
According to traffic officials the hauliers go to extra-ordinary efforts to avoid detection, even using a decoy to travel ahead and warn others by cell phone of weigh-bridges that are being manned. The following truckers are then able to re-route their vehicles.
Granite blocks are transported from as far afield as Zaire, Zimbabwe and Namibia, although a lot come from local quarries. Much of it has been railed to Durban either to the specialised granite berth on the Point, or one of the other loading berths at Maydon Wharf. However in recent months it has been noticeable that increasing amounts are being transported by road.
Road hauliers have now reacted to the concentrated attention from the traffic police.
They are reported to have threatened to smash up the weigh-bridges if the police don't stop their campaign against them, claiming they are being discriminated against. They argue that most of the time they are not guilty of overloading, while admitting that the size of the fines they have to pay (presumably for being overloaded) are greater than those for taxi operators, who they say are not being targeted.
By Terry Hutson
