Road transport haulage operators have been given a clear message by a High Court Judge: Overload your vehicles at your peril.

In a reserved judgment handed down at the High Court in Hamilton, Justice Lyn Stevens said the country loses $100 million a year in unpaid or under paid road user charges.

Justice Stevens delivered a declaratory judgment which makes it clear that a transport operator must have the exact licence for the distance and weight of each load they carry.

The judgment entirely debunked a widely held transport industry belief that enforcement officers allow a five percent weight tolerance over and above the licence purchased.

Justice Stevens made his comments in the case of Mt Maunganui transport operator TD Haulage which was appealing a District Court assessment that the company owed $1.215 million in short paid road user charges.

Land Transport New Zealand (now the New Zealand Transport Agency) had initially assessed the company’s short payment as being over $3 million, claiming that TD had bought insufficient an inappropriate licence credit over a six year period for the loads it was carrying.

But this sum had been reduced by a review in the District Court before the matter got to Justice Stevens.

Justice Stevens said the onus was squarely on the operator not to overload, and those that did so should know that from now on, they did so at their peril.

In the end, it is not known what TD Haulage was required to pay to settle the matter because a confidential settlement was reached been the parties during the appeal. But Justice Stevens closed the case by delivering a judgment anyway, using it to sternly warn the industry of its shortcomings.