The number everyone knows is 44 tonnes. Class 1 drivers carry that in their head like it's the one weight limit that matters. It isn't. There are three separate obligations — gross vehicle weight, axle weight, and train weight — and DVSA can issue a separate offence for each one. I didn't understand this for the first couple of years. Thought if the gross was fine, I was fine. I wasn't.
Let me explain what I mean, because this is the kind of thing that gets glossed over in the test prep and then bites you at a check site.
Three limits, three separate offences
Gross vehicle weight is the weight on the tractor unit's own axles. Train weight is the combined weight of the whole combination — unit plus trailer plus load. Axle weight is the load on each individual axle or axle group. Miss any of them and you're in trouble. Miss all three at once? That's a rough afternoon at the check site.
A TM I knew in Coventry had a vehicle stop at the static site off the M6 near Knutsford. Gross train weight was legal. One trailer bogie axle was 11% over its plate rating. Different offence from the gross. Separate fixed penalty. Went on the OCRS separately. Three axle offences plus a gross offence in a single weighbridge stop is four separate charges — it happens. Not often. But it happens.
The point is: you can't just think about the gross. You need to know all three numbers, for your specific vehicle, before you pull out of the yard.
Six axles gets you 44 tonnes. Five axles doesn't.
Here's where drivers go wrong on backloads. They know the magic number is 44,000 kg. So they load to 44 tonnes and pull out. On a five-axle combination.
A six-axle artic — three-axle unit, three-axle trailer — can run to 44,000 kg under both the Construction and Use Regulations 1986 and the Authorised Weight Regulations 1998. That's your standard Class 1 combination. Fine.
A five-axle combination is different. Under the Authorised Weight Regulations, a five-axle artic can reach 40,000 kg — but only if the drive axle has road-friendly suspension and the drive axle load doesn't exceed 10,500 kg. Without road-friendly suspension on the drive axle, that drops to 10,000 kg. And under the older Construction and Use limits, a five-axle combination is capped at 38,000 kg full stop.
Road-friendly suspension means at least 75% of the spring effect comes from air or a compressible fluid. Some fleet units spec'd without it — older stuff especially. If you're tramping on an unfamiliar unit out of somewhere like DIRFT and you're being pushed to gross out the trailer, you need to know the axle configuration before you agree to the load. A 40-tonne load on a vehicle that's actually limited to 38 is two tonnes over before you've left the yard.
The Ministry Plate is the one that counts
Every goods vehicle over 3,500 kg gets two plates. The manufacturer's plate shows design weights — what the vehicle is built to handle. The Ministry Plate is issued by DVSA and shows legal weights — what the vehicle is legally permitted to carry on the road, in its specific configuration.
You comply with whichever is lower. If your Ministry Plate says the gross is 40,000 kg, running at 40,001 kg is an offence even if the vehicle is physically capable of 44,000 kg on six axles. The plate is the limit. Not the Construction and Use tables. Not what someone told you. The plate.
Both plates need to be in the cab or on the vehicle. DVSA asks for them at check sites. If you can't produce them, that's an additional problem on top of whatever weight issues they find. Know where they are before you need them under pressure at a lay-by on the M6.
The drive axle limit: 11.5 tonnes maximum
The absolute ceiling for a single non-steering powered axle under the Construction and Use Regulations is 11.5 tonnes. But — and this matters — individual vehicle configurations carry lower limits depending on axle count and what's on the Ministry Plate. For a five-axle combination at 40,000 kg under the AWR, the drive axle must not exceed 10,500 kg with road-friendly suspension.
Check the plate. The 11.5t ceiling is the regulation maximum. Your plate might say lower. They're not the same number.
The 5% tolerance — and when it vanishes
DVSA examiners work to an operational tolerance of 5% before issuing a fixed penalty or prohibition. In practice: 4.9% over the gross and the excess is under a tonne, you'll probably get a warning and a stern word. Hit 5.1% over, or put a tonne or more on the axle beyond the plate — fixed penalty. Starting at £100 for the lowest band of overload.
That 5% isn't a right. It's operational discretion. DVSA can drop the tolerance if the axle excess is over a tonne even at a low percentage, if the load is distributed unsafely, or if the vehicle's OCRS history suggests a pattern. Don't treat it as a buffer you're allowed to use.
At the serious end — 30% over, or 5 tonnes excess — they stop issuing fixed penalties and start issuing court summonses. Magistrates' court, unlimited fine, formal prosecution on the record. The Traffic Commissioner sees it. I've seen operators lose their licence on the back of one serious overloading prosecution. One stop. One vehicle. One very bad day at the weighbridge.
The weighbridge you don't stop for
Static check sites are the obvious ones. The lay-by with lollipop signs, the DVSA examiners, the portable weighing pads. You see them coming. You know what they are.
Weigh-in-motion sensors are different. These are embedded in the road surface and read axle weights at normal driving speed. The vehicle doesn't stop. You drive over and the system logs the data. If it flags a potential overload, the vehicle gets directed to a static site for confirmation — but you might not see that happen immediately. Sometimes the data is reviewed later and enforcement follows from the records.
A mate running flat-deck out of DIRFT drove past what looked like an unstaffed weigh-in-motion site for weeks. No stops. No lollipops. He assumed it wasn't active. It was. The data was stored. When DVSA eventually directed him into a static check at Stafford Services northbound, they had five months of records showing consistent axle overloading on backloads out of the East Midlands. The fixed penalty was the smallest part of what happened next.
The practical lesson: you can't tell from looking at a sensor whether it's logging your vehicle. Treat every weigh-in-motion site as if the data's going somewhere. Because it is.
Whose job is it to know the weight?
Both. That's the annoying answer but it's the right one.
The operator is responsible for ensuring vehicles leave the yard within legal limits — load plans, weighbridge receipts, axle-by-axle checks before dispatch on loads where distribution matters. Especially curtain-siders, where the shipper stacks the pallets and you get what you get.
The driver is also responsible. You sign for the load. If you drive away knowing the vehicle might be over, or if any reasonable person in your position should have suspected it, you're liable. 'I didn't check' isn't a defence. 'I couldn't have known, and here's the evidence of what I did to check' sometimes is.
I pushed back on a load at a site in Immingham because the pallet weights on the paperwork didn't match what the consignment looked like. The yard manager told me to sign it anyway. I didn't. The load went back. The TM was not happy that afternoon. He was happier the following week when we weighed the pallets properly and found they were 1.8 tonnes over declared — because if I'd pulled out with that load and DVSA had found it, it would have been my card on the line. And the company's O-licence.
Public weighbridges before you go
Not always practical. But if you're taking a load where the declared weight feels wrong — the suspension's sitting lower than usual, the pallets don't look right for what's on the sheet — a public weighbridge before you go is worth the twenty quid and the thirty minutes. Most are near major distribution hubs. DVSA publishes a list.
The ticket you get is dated, shows axle weights and gross. If you get stopped later and the vehicle is now over because the load's shifted in transit, the ticket demonstrates you checked at departure. At a TC hearing, that kind of documented due diligence is worth having. It doesn't automatically get you off the hook. It does show you took the job seriously.
Weight and the OCRS
Overloading convictions go on the Operator Compliance Risk Score. That's the system DVSA uses to decide how often your fleet gets targeted for inspections — green means lower risk, red means regular stops and a likely letter from the Traffic Commissioner. A single serious overloading prosecution can push a fleet from green to amber. Two or three in a 36-month window puts a small operation at real risk of a public inquiry.
I've written about the OCRS in more detail here. The short version: the £300 fixed penalty at the roadside is the cheapest part of a serious overloading incident. The O-licence consequences are what make it expensive.
The numbers to keep in your head
Six-axle combination: 44,000 kg gross train weight. Five-axle with road-friendly suspension: 40,000 kg. Without: 38,000 kg. Drive axle ceiling: 11.5t under Construction and Use, but check the Ministry Plate — it might be lower for your vehicle. DVSA operational tolerance: 5% before a fixed penalty kicks in, provided the excess is under a tonne. Above a tonne excess, the tolerance disappears regardless of percentage.
Know the plates. Know the configuration you're driving today, not the configuration you drove last week. And push back on the load if the weight doesn't add up — because the plate on the door isn't the only thing at stake when you pull out of the gate.
If you're managing driver hours and WTD compliance alongside this, ShiftOwt does that automatically for £5.99 a month. Weight compliance is a separate discipline — but the same principle applies: have a system, have a record, and know what you're signing off on before DVSA asks you to explain it.