Motorhome police weighbridge

lordmountararat

Some motorhomes have ridiculously Low weight margins. I have seen them as low as 300kg excluding driver but including a half filled tank of fuel. Since the average adult weighs around 75kg, there really isn't much leeway. You see them lurching around corners, obviously grossly over loaded, or hardly able to keep in their motorway lane in a high wind.

DB1904

forgotmyname said:

DB1904 said:

How much did they compensate you per mile?

Not my concern, I was working for a company so just went where they sent me. Had a fuel card so made sure to fillup
at the motorway services to get the free vouchers.  Averaged 90 to 120 litres every 2 days depending on the route/day.

14mpg though at todays prices the item would have been worth less than the cost to deliver it.

VOSA guy didn't really care he just thought I was winding him up when I said where I had been and where I was going,
he would not have known whether I was going to collect something which would overload the lorry on the way back.
Opening the back door to show one small item just got me on my was a lot quicker, no need to have the tank dipped or
wait for the weighbridge.

Same thing when they started using defect books, had my book in the cab and noted a bulb out, he says pop the indicator
or and sees the bulb now working so knows he is less likely to find unfixed faults. Got me on my way faster.

The back door should have been opened at the time of the initial stop.

marlot

lordmountararat said:

Some motorhomes have ridiculously Low weight margins. I have seen them as low as 300kg excluding driver but including a half filled tank of fuel. Since the average adult weighs around 75kg, there really isn't much leeway. You see them lurching around corners, obviously grossly over loaded, or hardly able to keep in their motorway lane in a high wind.

Yes, I saw one which was advertised as a 4-berth.  Max gross weight of 3,500Kg.

But it it had a payload of less than 200Kg.  If you say 75kg for a second adult (one is included in the basic weight), a couple of 40kg teenagers, a 25 kg dog, you'd have to leave the clothes, food, water, camp chairs, bikes at home.  That sounds like a pretty miserable holiday.

Herzlos

But it means you can drive it on a post 1997 license without needing to sit a class C test. 

It's still virtually useless though and will be overloaded on pretty much all trips.

forgotmyname

DB1904 said:

The back door should have been opened at the time of the initial stop.

He was going through the tacho's when he asked about the weight, Showed him my last delivery invoice which was the next drop.

I did open the rear after he had finished and he sent me on my way.

They have a job and personally never had much of an issue with them, they can see I got faults fixed quickly.  It was just the one
jobsworth who tried to lever the tread off the rear tyres, he really tried though and kept going back to them to have another go.
But he failed... Was he looking for browny points? I did wonder.

DB1904

forgotmyname said:

DB1904 said:

The back door should have been opened at the time of the initial stop.

He was going through the tacho's when he asked about the weight, Showed him my last delivery invoice which was the next drop.

I did open the rear after he had finished and he sent me on my way.

They have a job and personally never had much of an issue with them, they can see I got faults fixed quickly.  It was just the one
jobsworth who tried to lever the tread off the rear tyres, he really tried though and kept going back to them to have another go.
But he failed... Was he looking for browny points? I did wonder.

Thought you said they took you on a 60 mile round trip to weigh you. 

forgotmyname

Ahh... No it was a 60 mile round trip to deliver one small item.  One of the other guys got escorted a few miles off his
route and made the police escort him back to where they stopped him.

He said its not his normal route and didn't know the area.  He said he was lucky the weighbridge was broken because
he may have been overloaded. Police not happy because he got away and now had to escort him back.

DB1904

forgotmyname said:

Ahh... No it was a 60 mile round trip to deliver one small item.  One of the other guys got escorted a few miles off his
route and made the police escort him back to where they stopped him.

He said its not his normal route and didn't know the area.  He said he was lucky the weighbridge was broken because
he may have been overloaded. Police not happy because he got away and now had to escort him back.

Unless you were there I wouldn't believe that story. There is no requirement to escort him back. 

forgotmyname

No I was not there but he was not a liar, possibly no requirement to escort him back but if they divert you to an unknown
location then it seems unfair for them to abandon you.  Maybe "had to" was a poor choice of words?

Personally I would have been thinking I was lucky to not get weighed and be glad to be on my way again. Probably would
not have thought or wanted to be escorted back to my intended location. Especially as he thought he may have been over
the weight limit and had already delivered one pallet.

Truck at another depot got weighed at 1.4tons over. Driver got fined but the company got a bigger fine. Had to get all the
lorries weighed and they were surprised that some 7.5 ton vehicles could barely carry more than a 3.5ton van.

Ditzy_Mitzy

marlot said:

lordmountararat said:

Some motorhomes have ridiculously Low weight margins. I have seen them as low as 300kg excluding driver but including a half filled tank of fuel. Since the average adult weighs around 75kg, there really isn't much leeway. You see them lurching around corners, obviously grossly over loaded, or hardly able to keep in their motorway lane in a high wind.

Yes, I saw one which was advertised as a 4-berth.  Max gross weight of 3,500Kg.

But it it had a payload of less than 200Kg.  If you say 75kg for a second adult (one is included in the basic weight), a couple of 40kg teenagers, a 25 kg dog, you'd have to leave the clothes, food, water, camp chairs, bikes at home.  That sounds like a pretty miserable holiday.

The likelihood is that it will be a heavier duty chassis, 5 ton or similar, that has been down-plated to 3.5 tons to allow driving on a post '97 licence.  If so, it can be re-plated to full gross weight, but at the expense of needing a class C licence to drive it.