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Protection of bridges from excessive burdens.
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158.—(1) Any local authority, railway or canal company, or other person liable to maintain a bridge carrying a public highway may, by notices in the prescribed form placed in the prescribed manner on the approaches to such bridge, prohibit any vehicle which with the load (if any) thereon exceeds the weight specified in such notices from passing over such bridge either (as may be specified in such notices) at all or at a speed exceeding the speed specified in such notices.
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(2) Notices shall not be erected under this section in respect of a bridge unless some restriction on the use of such bridge is reasonably necessary to ensure that the traffic passing over such bridge shall not impose on such bridge a greater burden than it is capable of bearing and no such notice shall impose a greater restriction on the use thereof than is reasonably necessary for that purpose.
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(3) Any person who claims that notices purporting to have been erected under this section have been so erected in contravention of the foregoing sub-section of this section, may appeal in the prescribed manner to the Minister and on the hearing of such appeal the Minister shall give such directions (whether for the maintenance, removal, or alteration of such notices) as he shall think proper and such directions shall be final and conclusive.
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(4) Whenever the Minister in consequence of an appeal to him under the foregoing sub-section of this section gives directions for the removal or alteration of the notices to which such appeal relates, the person by whom such notices were erected shall, within three days after the communication of such directions to him, remove or alter (as the case may require) such notices in accordance with such directions and if he fails so to do he shall be guilty of an offence under this sub-section and shall on summary conviction thereof be liable to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds and a further fine not exceeding five pounds for every day during which the offence is continued.
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(5) Every person who drives a vehicle over a bridge in contravention of a notice erected under this section in relation to such bridge shall (notwithstanding that such notice may have been erected in contravention of sub-section (2) of this section) be guilty of an offence under this sub-section and shall on summary conviction thereof be liable to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.
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(6) Whenever a vehicle is driven over a bridge in such circumstances as to constitute an offence under the next preceding sub-section of this section, the owner of such vehicle shall be liable in damages to the authority, company, or other person liable to maintain such bridge for all (if any) injury occasioned to such bridge by such driving of such vehicle over such bridge, and such damages shall be recoverable by such person from such owner by civil action in any court of competent jurisdiction.
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