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A Tale of Caution


cosrec

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Nothing to do with this hobby but a little tale to advise people on here who think they are exempt axle wieghts over loading etc. Yesterday our company was asked if we could supply a driver to take a vehicle to London. As i was doing nothing i volunteered for the job. It involved drivinging a very large smart American Pickup truck towing a trailor used for demonstration purposes to a shop in London for a very large UK company. Leave the trailer and come home. What a steady little job i thought. Truck is 5 years old Mot paper work in folder in glove box. Trailor purposly built for job nearly new. All going great thought steady job this cop pulls me over into Trowel services. Why have i been pulled over i asked. Routine check DVLA. Nothing to worry about i thought. Next thing i put over wiegh pads and told to pull over there next to a load of 7.5 ton scaffolders trucks cars and vans towing other cars and vans on trailers Irish fridge vehicles small saloon cars with huge camping trailers caravans familys of 5 two dogs 3.5ton recovery vehicles with cars on etc. Any way out come is trailer 800kg over wieght over two axles Gross overload £600 fine for me as driver. P/up 108 kg overwieght with me and my pack up box £120 fine to try and ease the situation i suggested if i ate my sandwiches it would lesson the load copper had no sense of humour vehicle allowed to continue ( if i ate sandwiches) but not trailer it was PG9 ed cant move must be put on back of something Guess who recovered it. Trailor now has prohibition order on it until it is cleared at test station. What i am getting at with this post is it is not only Hgvs that get pulled by DVLA the coppers breif that morning and he told me was anthing that looks like it it could wiegh more than 4 tons and has small wheels. while i was waiting for recovery at least 75 vehicles pulled and parked up maybe 10 percent HGVS

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Rotten luck mate but there may be a bright side...........(you didn't mention Tachos so I'll ask.....)

what was the gross allowable designed laden weight of the pick up?....

....if it was over 3.5 tonnes and you were pulling a load bearing trailer...

(...and whether empty or not makes no differance) .......

....consider yourself very lucky they also didn't do you for having no tacho fitted or being used......

(assuming the truck didn't have one........???)

thats a neat one they do like to use on occasion...

..bear in mind that if you drive a vehicle of 3.5 gross tonne weight you have to have a tacho apparatus fitted if you have a towbar .....regardless of if you are towing a trailer or not!!!!....

...(if you're not actually towing... you don't have to actually have a paper in the tacho but the vehicle does still need a tacho apparatus fitted)

not as strange as it sounds you see.......

cos........... if you have a towbar on a 3.5 gross tonne vehicle....... they can assume that the vehicle is capable and may well be used to.... carry/tow more than 3.5 tonnes gross weight...

... and then it has to have a tacho by law....whether actually towing a trailer or not..

I know drivers that have been done for this so can assure you it is not 'folklore'.....

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Rotten luck mate but there may be a bright side...........(you didn't mention Tachos so I'll ask.....)

what was the gross allowable designed laden weight of the pick up?....

....if it was over 3.5 tonnes and you were pulling a load bearing trailer...

(...and whether empty or not makes no differance) .......

....consider yourself very lucky they also didn't do you for having no tacho fitted or being used......

(assuming the truck didn't have one........???)

thats a neat one they do like to use on occasion...

..bear in mind that if you drive a vehicle of 3.5 gross tonne weight you have to have a tacho apparatus fitted if you have a towbar .....regardless of if you are towing a trailer or not!!!!....

...(if you're not actually towing... you don't have to actually have a paper in the tacho but the vehicle does still need a tacho apparatus fitted)

not as strange as it sounds you see.......

cos........... if you have a towbar on a 3.5 gross tonne vehicle....... they can assume that the vehicle is capable and may well be used to.... carry/tow more than 3.5 tonnes gross weight...

... and then it has to have a tacho by law....whether actually towing a trailer or not..

I know drivers that have been done for this so can assure you it is not 'folklore'.....

 

Didnt mention tacho as i was trying to get home point about over weight basically everthing you have mentioned was brought up. The P/U is rated at 5.6 tons in the US but 3tons here. I always carry my didgi card in wallet and had made a note of starting time and milage on company job sheet so avoided another £200 fine. I think it will be along time before the P/U or trailer go back on the road

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Someone I know (not a mate) was recently redoing their patio - filled their Nissan Navarra (used as family car) and little Halfords trailer with slabs and got pulled - was so far overweight he will have to go to court.. Bizarrely was allowed to continue but trailer axle snapped (!) shortly thereafter. Trailer was parked and slabs recovered in ferry operation. When he went back for the empty broken trailer it had been nicked - saved him a job I suppose...

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I always thought that 3.5 tonnes gross could tow a trailer up to 750 KG without a tacho fitted, my understanding is that anything over 4.250 had to have a tacho fitted ??????????????

Fair play Ray it's a while since I was a full time driver so things may have changed but I know thats the way they interpretated the law back then....(mid 90s).....

also .......

...It was my expirience that you should not trust a Police officer to know the law properly nor to apply it properly either.....it's very much worth you knowing the law regarding these things inside out if you're in the business of trucking/haulage or even if you are just shifting the occasional load about for yourself or mates....

.....one mate of mine was in an empty twin wheel transit van towing an empty Ifor Williams twin wheel trailer and although he had tacho apparatus fitted in the van there was no tacho sheet in it.....the fine was around the £300 quid as I recall...........

I was taken to court in (I think it was) Droitwich Crown Court once for having no Operators Licence on a 7.5 tonne flat bed..having been stopped on the M5 by motorway police....

The officers were pretty adamant that I was in the deep brown stuff and charged me with the offence....so........

By reading up on the law (Gaunts House in Bristol used to be the place to get the information )....I found that you did not actually need an Operators Licence on an HGV/lorry ...

as long as you are NOT carrying goods 'for hire or reward'

if you can ( as I did) prove that whatever you have on your lorry is being carried for your own 'personal and private use and not for profit'.....then you do NOT need an O Licence.

Also ...as the law stood in those days...as long as a HGV tractor didn't weigh over 7.5 tonnes and you removed the 5th wheel...(very important that bit mind!)...you could drive it around as your family car if you chose to on an ordinary car licence and never bother with an O licence.... get this...

.I even got paid compensation for my time and trouble by the court and the Judge very clearly and very frostily told the police prosecutor and the charging officer off in front of everyone there for not knowing the law as well as I did.......

like I say...........things may have changed since... but it pays to know your onions!!..........

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if you drive a vehicle of 3.5 gross tonne weight you have to have a tacho apparatus fitted if you have a towbar .....regardless of if you are towing a trailer or not!!!!....

Are you sure? isn't it vehicles exceeding 3.5 Tonne. also there is an exemption for NON Commercial Activity.

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if you drive a vehicle of 3.5 gross tonne weight you have to have a tacho apparatus fitted if you have a towbar .....regardless of if you are towing a trailer or not!!!!....

Are you sure? isn't it vehicles exceeding 3.5 Tonne. also there is an exemption for NON Commercial Activity.

 

I must admit I don't know about any kind of exemption for various uses..apart from perhaps if you are a licensed showman????.anyways like I said.. ...maybe things have changed....but

All I can say is that back a few years ago...if you fitted a towbar to a vehicle that was 3.5 tonnes gross, then you also had to fit a tacho...there had to one 'fitted and available to use'

.you didn't need to actually use the tacho just as long as you didn't have a trailer behind you..

I guess the way the Police saw things was... that even if your trailer was empty when they stopped you....you may be about to go just around the corner and put a full legal load in the van and on the trailer... and then you'd be way above the 3.5 gross limit and into the realms of tacho land....

I stress!.... ..things may well have changed!

but I can assure you ..thats how the law stood (at least in the mid 90s)

I know there are thousands of vans /pick ups out there with towbars fitted and yes you're probably right ..most of them never ever get pulled......but you only need one smart arse officer who does know the correct 'interpretation and application' of the law and yer knackered....

Like I say.....check it out for yourself and get aware of the current regulations..

it's easy to do.. just find the transport authority and ask for a current pamphlet on the various laws regards non HGVs and towing/etc

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It is true that vehicles plated to a gross weight over 3500 kg require a tacho provided they are capable of being used over that weight. So a 3.5 tonne Transit with a towbar fitted needs a tacho, as does a Land Rover if used commercially.

 

The 750 kg trailer allowance is for a 7500 kg truck which can operate at 8.25 tonnes with a trailer without needing an LGV licence.

 

Private use exempts you from the requirement to use the tacho.

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Bit of an update The P/Up like i said is rated @5.6 tons in the states. When it was imported here it was presented for approval at 3 ton with a pint of fuel and a midget driving it thus it was classed as a 3ton chassis able to tow a 2.6 ton trailer with suitable brakes. The trailer has open up sides and is fitted with a permanant display inside. A new trailer was ordered recently and unbeknown to operator they have used a chassis with a lower chassis rating but the same body on it. Also some clever shop fitters had decided to put a bit of gear in for use when it got to london and told know one. Hence the gross overload. Had it been 2% heavier it would have been a court appearance and possibly a £5,000 fine To be fair it seemed to ride very smoothly Good news is my fines are getting paid. I think this is one of those cases were someone has tried to short circuit things using a bit of jiggery pokey and fine words and got away with it for a while but it has still come round to bite them

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Private use exempts you from the requirement to use the tacho.

 

Only if the vehicle is 25+ years old or below 7.5 Ton, over 7.5 Ton or newer now requires a tacho and driving hours apply even for private use.

 

If a vehicle is exempt from tacho its also exempt from driving hours, strange one really.:???

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I think another stupid law is if a vehicle is fitted with a tacho even if it is exempt from using it by virtue of what ever it must still be calibrated and checked and have seals fitted even if it is never used

 

While i was parked up i saw a 3.5 ton citron beavertail relay vehicle pulled up with a saab on the back of it. later the Saab was dropped of and recovery vehicle drove of. Shortly afterwards an identical recovery vehicle with a slidebed body on came and collected the Saab before he went 200 yds he was pulled and parked up. I spoke to the driver and as he had not driven off the car park he wouldnt be prosecuted but he had to leave that car behind. Two things spring to mind here first i cannot understand why first operator didnt tell second operator why he was asking him to do a relay job for him. Second a lot of people are riding about under false impressions about what they can or cant do with their vehicles. Plus enforcing powers who seem to say what is right or wrong while arguing amonst there selves as to who is right or wrong

 

Anyway rant over but it can only get worse as we have a lot of civil servants hiding behind unfathomable laws justifying their wages.

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Anyway rant over but it can only get worse as we have a lot of civil servants hiding behind unfathomable laws justifying their wages.

 

Hmm, it's no coincidence that in these times of shrinking public sector budgets there appears to be more activity on the enforcement and rule interpretation front......

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Hmm, it's no coincidence that in these times of shrinking public sector budgets there appears to be more activity on the enforcement and rule interpretation front......

 

Spot on.......... I beleive that there is a direct correlation here, they have got to raise funds from somewhere, who better than poor old Joe Public, just keep bleeding us dry.

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yep you're right there....

......what always annoys me even more than the petty rule enforcing though is this....

if you are (like us) generally 'law and rule abiding' folk.... then you are easier to chase and prosecute....

.I'll stab a guess that we all have Tax and MOTs on our vehicles...our vehicles are all properly registered and they are all (more or less) always kept 'up together and safe' .....and we do at least endeavour to not overload usually too.....

...however...when we occasionally slip up...there is no 'getting away with it' for these very reasons...

the 'authorities' know exactly where to chase us to and get their fine because they have a solid and more or less permanent address ....and we being 'normal' folk with a business/family/home to keep going dutifully always 'pay up' and carry on..................

how about if your address was ..

"the layby up by the roundabout just off the dual carriageway Officer......for this week anyway............."

mind you ..

...the ironic thing is, such folk hardly ever drive rough old vehicles these days.....they make so much more money than a legitimate business ever does due to moving on every couple of weeks and never having to worry about nonsense like O licences and vehicle tax and insurance and income tax etc etc ........

ah well...........gonna look for me a nice big caravan I think......

mind you ..... I'll probably get done for towing over weight then! hahahahahaha !

Edited by RattlesnakeBob
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A friend of mine loaded his van with a lot of commercial wood working machinery. Including a tin box of damm great router wheels. On the way home the wheels rattled in the tin and got on his nerves so he took them out that night when he got home. Following day he was stopped for suspected overweight and taken to bridge. The vehicle was about 16 kgs underweight. Guess what the tin weighed? :D

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Only if the vehicle is 25+ years old or below 7.5 Ton, over 7.5 Ton or newer now requires a tacho and driving hours apply even for private use.

 

If a vehicle is exempt from tacho its also exempt from driving hours, strange one really.:???

 

 

I am totally confused as to whether a Landrover 101 falls foul of this?

 

some of them had new plates fitted showing 3,600Kg (can't remeber the exact figure off hand) and obviously all have a tow bar so even those (like mine) with the original plates at approx 3,200 will be >3.5 when towing -

 

so is it a rolling 25 year age or is it the road tax age limit which applies ? If the latter nearly every 101 would need a tacho :wow:

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I was told the other day that the law is to be changed to include private use ..... the implication being that most decent 4x4's will need a tacho if fitted with a towbar .

This came from my brother inlaw who is an MOT tester .... they are being sent advance notice's by the DVLA on upcoming law changes..... he was certain that the law would apply to all vehicles private or not.

Perhaps someone here can throw more light on the subject

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