Two Ways to Be Overloaded

A subtle but crucial point that catches even careful operators: there are two independent weight limits, and you can breach one while perfectly legal on the other.

1. Gross Vehicle Weight — the total, as above. Exceed your GVW and you're overloaded, full stop.
2. Axle weight — the load carried by each individual axle. Regulations cap the weight per axle (commonly 8 tonnes per axle in the East African framework), separately from the total.

Here's the trap: a vehicle can be within its total GVW yet illegal on a single axle, because the load is piled toward the front or rear instead of spread. Kenyan enforcement checks both — a vehicle must fall within the maximum gross weight and have no single axle over its limit.

So "I'm under my total weight" is not a complete defence. And it's not merely a legal technicality: an axle loaded past its limit is also the physical situation that ruins handling and destroys road surfaces. Which is why distribution — where the weight sits — is a safety and legal issue in its own right, not a tidiness preference. Securing a Load turns that into practical placement rules.