anybody a member ? is it worth been a member when you have just one vehicle and is it worth the £300.00 plus each year ?
The general consensus of opinion among operators I have spoken to is that unless you have 35+ trucks then they aren’t interested in you.
BIGGEE:
anybody a member ? is it worth been a member when you have just one vehicle and is it worth the £300.00 plus each year ?
Most of the advice they seem to offer is available freely as a download on the internet, and unless you are a specialist operator have always steered away from them and their conferences in exotic places
I might find out how interested they are soon, my membership expires now, they want £619 + vat to continue ( 3 vehicles + lawplan ), a friend of mine has suggested the federation of small business ( who have a very similar legal plan ) which he thinks charge him £140 a year ( need to confirm that)
eta: their specialist livestock group is quite good 
I went with the RHA this year, the company I work for has 3 hgv and 3 trailers + 15 vans. I found the information given useful as the laws have changed with regards to towing trailers and we have only just changed to a national licence from a restricted.
(any vehicle combination over 3.5 tonne used for hire or reward now needs to be on your operators licence)
They are always at the end of the phone if you need them and they don’t get information from word of mouth like on the web or from your mate down the pub, they look it up and work with you to see if it applies to you and your company, again handy if like us your new to hire and reward or your specialist.
It cost us £400 ish for the year and I feel so far it’s been worth the information alone.
I was a member of the RHA for about four years, I gave it up because I thought they were only interested in promoting there junkets to the Med for a booze up. I never had the time or the money to indulge in this frivolity. Their news letter was always full of this crap and it just seemed to rub it in. I will say if you rang the helpline with a query you could speak to someone with the the specialist knowledge to give you good advice, but that IMO was a lot of money wasted for an occasional bit of help. regards Kevmac47.
ibson:
(any vehicle combination over 3.5 tonne used for hire or reward now needs to be on your operators licence)They are always at the end of the phone if you need them and they don’t get information from word of mouth like on the web or from your mate down the pub, they look it up and work with you to see if it applies to you and your company, again handy if like us your new to hire and reward or your specialist.
It cost us £400 ish for the year and I feel so far it’s been worth the information alone.
i would have thought £400 was quite a lot for a bit of information, after all where do “they look it up” on the web i would say!!
i thought about being a RHA member years ago, they were v keen to take my money, infact that keen i got the feeling that was their only intention!
wtf did i press?
Moose:
ibson:
(any vehicle combination over 3.5 tonne used for hire or reward now needs to be on your operators licence)They are always at the end of the phone if you need them and they don’t get information from word of mouth like on the web or from your mate down the pub, they look it up and work with you to see if it applies to you and your company, again handy if like us your new to hire and reward or your specialist.
It cost us £400 ish for the year and I feel so far it’s been worth the information alone.
i would have thought £400 was quite a lot for a bit of information, after all where do “they look it up” on the web i would say!!
i thought about being a RHA member years ago, they were v keen to take my money, infact that keen i got the feeling that was their only intention!
Granted it does seem a lot but it was information we needed to stay within the law and it saved me a lot of time looking into it thoroughly, this allows me to earn money for the company doing what I do best. (running our sites)
I know they don’t look up the information on the Internet as everything they sent me was out of vosa legislation or their records, I’m sure if they are clutching at straws they would look something up.
They do tend to be able to help because there is usually some one who has had the problem before and they can reference it.
They also allow you to use their conditions of carriage and storage, I’m sure there is people who say its not worth the paper it’s written on but for us with none of them it’s been a great starting point. I’m sure as time goes on I will find less use for them and may cease the membership but as for now they have been a great help.
If your a well established company or have been in the industry for a while I wouldn’t say you have a need for them but if you’re diversifying like we did or need help and your main job isn’t trucks it’s pretty useful.
ibson:
Granted it does seem a lot but it was information we needed to stay within the law and it saved me a lot of time looking into it thoroughly, this allows me to earn money for the company doing what I do best. (running our sites).
it’s all in here cronersolutions.co.uk/Road_T … xpert.html if you’re feeling flush
tbh most of what they do seems to be organising very expensive jolly’s ( bookable to expenses) masquerading as business conferences 
I found that they talk the talk, but dont do much else about it, final straw for me was when , peter caroll started the fair fuel campaign, and they jumped on, struck me, that they should have started the campaign, a long, long time ago, with some balls.which they just dont have.
Denis F:
ibson:
Granted it does seem a lot but it was information we needed to stay within the law and it saved me a lot of time looking into it thoroughly, this allows me to earn money for the company doing what I do best. (running our sites).
it’s all in here cronersolutions.co.uk/Road_T … xpert.html if you’re feeling flush
tbh most of what they do seems to be organising very expensive jolly’s ( bookable to expenses) masquerading as business conferences
That seems like a good investment, i got a free copy of the RHA version when I joined, it had all the information I needed but how you interpret some legislation and how it applies to you can vary even to vosa! (there are a few grey areas with regards to trailers and the list of exemptions) the RHA gave me some great examples of company’s they have dealt with and it helped me decide if it was applicable to me.
It seems some people have had bad experiences with the RHA, I haven’t but everyone is entitled to an opinion. 