A transport manager has been sacked and banned after 50-metre steel tubes were shipped on the M25 without appropriate safety measures. 

Patrolling police officers spotted the “abnormal load" on the motorway last December. 

Dispensation had been given to the company to move the huge tubes as long as specific safeguards were in place. 

These safeguards were not in place and further enquiries showed the company had undertaken six movements in the preceding days, all of which breached the carefully planned dispensation. 

Transport managers are responsible for ensuring vehicle operators do not break safety rules. 

The transport manager in this case was subsequently prosecuted and fined £5,800 for permitting overweight vehicles to use the road network on all those occasions. 

On December 6 this year the transport manager was then banned for life from holding a similar position for any other haulage company and dismissed from his company role. 

Sergeant Jason Dearsley, who heads the Commercial Vehicle Unit at Essex Police, said: “My unit’s role is to educate HGV drivers and operators to ensure road safety, respond to incidents on the strategic road network and keep unsafe vehicles off the road. 

“We work with partners such DVSA and the Traffic Commissioner’s Office to uphold those high standards and enforce breaches of road safety legislation. 

“Checks are used to keep unsafe vehicles off the road and that vehicles are not breaking any rules and regulations: this includes checking authorised load weights and type of load permitted, checking vehicles for roadworthiness and mechanical faults. 

“The underlying principle of everything that we do is safety - to keep all road users safe. 

“Where there is a blatant disregard for the law that puts people at risk, we won’t hesitate to enforce the law.” 

Essex Police’s Commercial Vehicle Unit are committed to engaging positively with hauliers and drivers to help keep their businesses running, but it’s unacceptable to simply ignore a dispensation set up together to support a company as well as protect the road users of our county.