I’d like to get a feel for what people think about something I’ve noticed in my area recently.
A one man band plant hire chap is moving his large (in excess of 15tn) excavator to and from jobs using an agricultural tractor (usually a John Deere, sometimes a fastrac) loaded onto a semi-plant trailer.
My understanding, the towing vehicle is being used in a HGV role and therefore should be driven under an O Licence; with due regard to driver’s hours and fitted with a tacho. I also suspect the plant is moved in excess of 15 miles from its base.
Given I was stuck behind this chap for a fair distance, being driven consistently at over 25 MPH its exemptions under construction and use regs cease to apply and therefore it can no longer be classed as an agricultural vehicle. And should now have to conform to all the other regs a HGV would (particularly braking efficiency).
Have I got this right? And if so, who do I shop him to given I think he’s blatantly ignoring legislation.
In a village near a to us a farmer had what I think was the local village idiot using the farmers tractor and trailer running stuff here there and everywhere for a builders merchant and coal yard amongst other places,that was until VOSA(was then) stopped him for a random lay-by check and said idiot told the nice chaps how he had been doing it for ages and gets paid cash by the farmer…
Farmer got a 10k fine,was in the local rag.
ckm1981:
In a village near a to us a farmer had what I think was the local village idiot using the farmers tractor and trailer running stuff here there and everywhere for a builders merchant and coal yard amongst other places,that was until VOSA(was then) stopped him for a random lay-by check and said idiot told the nice chaps how he had been doing it for ages and gets paid cash by the farmer…
Farmer got a 10k fine,was in the local rag.
Fair enough, they’re doing their job but this was a much worse scenario than the OPs as it was hire and reward, for other companies, not just moving their own machine about.
Own Account Driver:
Maybe you’ll get the wake up call of a lighted rag, soaked in petrol, through the letterbox.
Hypothesising or would this be your choice of response?
Arson with intent, quite serious… And anyone trying it would get a pair of nostrils jabbed in their gut.
Besides, I dont have a letterbox.
Give the tough guy act a rest, people with backbone don’t tend to do a lot of snitching.
Its not an act.
Anyhow, good to see you take this sort of thing as ‘snitching’…we back at school? Construction and use regs ignored, drivers hours ignored, o licence regs ignored, no doubt a number of mechanical defects which put other road users at risk? Certainly his rear light were not working on the trailer…Wonder what his braking efficiency was like…
And you’d be happy to let this sort of operator loose? I’ve seen, first hand, what a heavily laden vehicle does to a family car when it rolls over it. The family had to be deconstruction from the sandwich of metal.
Give the ‘old boys network’ a rest and man up. Then get yourself along to workshops for a spine repair yourself.
Own Account Driver:
Seriously, constructions and use regs ignored, I had no idea, I take it all back. I’m sure they’d send the armed response unit for that.
Road safety n all that.
Anyhow, clearly we have a different opinion on this - you think it should be ignored, I don’t. Lets leave the sword fighting there.
Dodgy plant hirers have used tractors and trailers for years and got away with it.Shop them right away it may be your wife and kids under the next accident.
How do you know the machine was over 15t, those of us in the plant and construction game will tell you roughly how heavy it is if you say what machine it was. Are you sure he was hiring out the machine, not a contractor moving his own equipment as part of his job? He could’ve been off ditching for a farmer, driving the machine himself.
Muckaway:
How do you know the machine was over 15t, those of us in the plant and construction game will tell you roughly how heavy it is if you say what machine it was. Are you sure he was hiring out the machine, not a contractor moving his own equipment as part of his job? He could’ve been off ditching for a farmer, driving the machine himself.
Edumacated guesswork. Couldn’t see the model, pretty sure it was a Komatsu, around 10mtrs long on the trailer and the track overhung the trailer bed (width). All this pulled on a rough 5ish tn John deere.
Seen it buzzing around for a few months now - going to various locations. So could be a contractor. But I’m not in a position to determine that; and if his nose is clean, fair enough.
Sounds like a PC2100 which is a notifiable load. I know of a firm who got done several years ago for not getting a movement order on one; Their dash 3 machine was under the width but not the dash 6 they’d bought.
