Hi all, first post so will start off with newbie question/s, please dont shoot me down.
I am newly class 2 licenced and guess that im going to have to go the agency route for experience, therefore I’ll be in and out of different trucks, so my questions are (to start with, lol) -
Hight will be displayed in the cab and some of the weights will be on the Ministry plate also in the cab
And hello and welcome .
Edited as I stood corrected [emoji106]
To be fair, many trainers won’t bother covering things like height/weight for test purposes, so it is quite possible to come away from a test pass still not knowing this kind of thing. If you haven’t been through relevant CPC courses either you might not have encountered it until you find yourself in an actual job and needing to know.
I found this with many things, and even now I am still learning.
On the issue of weight, the plate will confirm the maximum rated load but I don’t think it shows the unladen vehicle weight so you need a weighbridge to establish the unladen weight in order to know how much you can legally carry. The load manifest ought to have some information about the weight of the cargo, so the driver can assess whether they are running close to the limit. In practice it would be difficult to check for sure unless the yard has a weighbridge on site.
Tricky.:
Hi all, first post so will start off with newbie question/s, please dont shoot me down.
I am newly class 2 licenced and guess that im going to have to go the agency route for experience, therefore I’ll be in and out of different trucks, so my questions are (to start with, lol) -
- how will I know what the height of the vehicle is? can this information always be found on it? If so, where?
- how will I know what weight the vehicle is unloaded? And maximum allowed loaded?
Usually a height board in the cab
Weighbridge to know empty weight - full tank of fuel with driver in cab
Max loaded weight is on plate in cab (GVW)
thanks for the replies folks. i wasnt told this info on lessons/test, and as i had that much going around in my head i failed to ask.
ORC - cpc soon so i’ll get them to show me.
On box / curtain vehicles height should be in it as said . Flat work there’s 2 heights
1 is the heigh of the vehicle i.e. Cab spoiler etc or
2 the load
You need to set it for the highest part of the veh.
I’ve known drivers set the height for a trailer at 12’6
When the units run at 13 6 then wonder why they’ve hit a bridge or something
For any noob reading who drives bendies, do think about the height of the cab and wind deflector as well as the trailer. It is common for trailers to have their height written on them somewhere, but less so for the drive units.
Also, you will need to know the running height of the fifth wheel on the drive unit. In my [limited] experience this can range from 1250mm to 1320mm, and a height marked trailer will usually specify what assumption it is making about the fifth wheel.
For example, a trailer might say it is 4.1m assuming a 1250mm fifth wheel. That means your actual height could be any of the following:
a) 4.10m (if your fifth wheel is actually 1250mm AND your wind deflector height is less than 4.10m)
b) 4.17m (if your fifth wheel is actually at 1320mm AND your wind deflector height is less than 4.17m)
c) whatever your wind deflector height is, if higher
If in doubt, ask. If no-one knows, measure it. And if all else fails, add a comfortable safety margin when you are thinking about bridges.