The man that stood in front of the truck,stated in the paper report,that if the driver had turned left,he would have not reacted,but there is nowhere to turn left before the 18 ton weight limit bridge in BOA.This is for whatever way the truck was heading,ie,coming from Frome/Trowbridge or from the hill from Bath/Melksham routes.Left before one way,takes you in to a small car park,the other way,there is just buildings.A fact is wrong here,by Bill Lasslet,the one man enforcement officer,with too much time on his hands,didnt even have a HIVIZ jacket on and safety goggles/hard hat/safety boots,when he was doing his part. 
There’s warning signs well before you get anywhere near the bridge - the driver obviously chose to ignore them.
C-Kay:
I get it all the time… ‘what the [zb] are you doing bringing that thing down a little road like this’. ‘there’s a weight restriction on this road’…yeah, and my farm is on this road, do one!
funny, i did farms for 3 years and never got asked once, most people know what you are doing by the fact you have a milk tanker behind you LOL
Talking of milk tankers, i see they’re now doing night time collections, at least in my area.
Or would it be one off due to an earlier break down?
Driveroneuk:
Talking of milk tankers, i see there now doing night time collections, at least in my area.Or would it be one off due to an earlier break down?
Farm collections in my area, have always been done days and nights, Arla, gregorys and turners all do round here (well turners are no more here).
I guess its cos you can run less trucks and just split it into 2 shifts.
Apols for bringing this one back from the dead but I chose to go (so I thought) through B-O-A in an 18- tonner the other day on the way to Dorset to miss out the traffic in Bath only to come across numerous “Vehicles under 17 T m.g.w. ONLY” type signs in blue so I didn’t risk it. Just having looked on google maps it appears there is a prohibitive 18T mgw sign which I must have missed just after a right-hander going south into B-O-A. So I would’ve been OK after all as the “prohibitive” overrules the “advisory”? (although a curious case in Bath recently meant a lady got off after going through a “no motor vehicles” sign due to “through traffic” being painted on the road and she argued that she wasn’t going through Bath and won! - they’ve changed it now). A one word answer from some authoritative source to the above question will do nicely thank you! Actually ROG’s above post seems to state that you can add another tonne to any old 17t and 25t restrictions. Is that true? Where is he when you need him?
I would agree with you in so as blue signs give information, red bordered signs give orders.
I used to go through BOA quite regular delivering horses, in an 18 tonner.
Although I could legally go through the town, IIRC the bridge in question is very narrow and on a bend which was also tight. Because of this we would often take the diversion route during the day as it only took one badly parked car/incompetant car driver, and we were properly stuffed.
I get this all the time on livestock collections,currently our worst problem is going throu Usk from the A449,the bridge has a weight limit but with an except for loading sign on it,every crop when we go down the police are waiting by the school to ask us the same question…“where are you going?”…“Monkswood poultry farm”…“Ok,youve got permission to go throu but can i give you leaflet?”…"Yes officer,the next one of ours will be along in 60 mins 
" It’s the same everytime,im sure they do it just to shut the parish council up 
You know I sometimes wonder where the bad impression of truckers came from. But then you get people posting on a public forum about how if someone did that to them you wouldn’t stop (a public forum mentioned on that very article) sigh
The general public isn’t to be fully blamed its the government who feed people this crap how truck and cars are damaging the environment last time I looked at the figures only 5% of the worlds damage contributing to climate change, how ever they want to turn it this time its just a excuse to tax people. A truck in theory will do less damage then a car/van as cars normal do short journeys stopping a starting where as most trucks are long distance also truck have stricter emission regs then cars. There will be busy body’s sticking there nose in everything thinking its there right as a citizen. Only way this war on truck is going to be won is by re educating Joe public who don’t understand who probably take there kids to school in there SUV which don’t even get time to warm up before its back on the drive. Council’s love doing thing to put HGV and cars in a bad light as things like this as it wins over voters and make then look like they care about the environment.
Many of these campaigners are retired people who have nothing else to do. Bearing that in mind, raising the retirement age may well reduce their numbers.
waddy640:
Many of these campaigners are retired people who have nothing else to do. Bearing that in mind, raising the retirement age may well reduce their numbers.
Too true…people move close to a farm and then moan about the smell and the heavy traffic rolling past their front door…but the farm has been 15 yrs and youve been here 3 months…didnt you see it when you looked to buy the house ■■?
I just popped into this thread again and picked up on the BOA weight restriction. The 17t MGW sign may be illegal as the new weights are 18t
But if you go over the bridge in an 18 tonner, you have exceeded the limit even if you are empty. and another thing, although the highway code may not be law, many of the signs & symbols that it depicts are,
washy jnr:
waddy640:
Many of these campaigners are retired people who have nothing else to do. Bearing that in mind, raising the retirement age may well reduce their numbers.Too true…people move close to a farm and then moan about the smell and the heavy traffic rolling past their front door…but the farm has been 15 yrs and youve been here 3 months…didnt you see it when you looked to buy the house ■■?
People only see and hear what they want to see and hear when viewing properties. Then on the first Sunday morning they discover that there is a church two doors along. What really annoys me are those that complain about something that has existed for centuries, ie the church bells and the courts/local authorities then ban the “nuisance” because some townie whinges about it. If they don’t like it then they should move back to where they came from.
Nick Taken, Trowbridge says…
1:45pm Sun 30 Aug 09
I say do away with all ‘trucks’ that way we would only live off what we can produce locally for ourselves.
Not a bad thing at all.‘Trucks’ are road destroying, carbon footprint flaunting, life taking thugs of the B roads.
Especially the foriegn ones with bald tyres.
Foriegn truckers go home, followed swiftly by the rest of you!
We can do without all that junk you peddle for ‘the man’.
Genius
Dogmatix:
Nick Taken, Trowbridge says…
1:45pm Sun 30 Aug 09
I say do away with all ‘trucks’ that way we would only live off what we can produce locally for ourselves.
Not a bad thing at all.‘Trucks’ are road destroying, carbon footprint flaunting, life taking thugs of the B roads.
Especially the foriegn ones with bald tyres.
Foriegn truckers go home, followed swiftly by the rest of you!
We can do without all that junk you peddle for ‘the man’.
He obviously cant remember when Bowyers had a place there.
washy jnr:
I get this all the time on livestock collections,currently our worst problem is going throu Usk from the A449,the bridge has a weight limit but with an except for loading sign on it,every crop when we go down the police are waiting by the school to ask us the same question…“where are you going?”…“Monkswood poultry farm”…“Ok,youve got permission to go throu but can i give you leaflet?”…"Yes officer,the next one of ours will be along in 60 mins
What’s the leaflet, and is it absorbant?
Its alright throwing these weight limits up , but where are the turnaround points , often these signs dont appear until its to late, and then your commited ,more turnaround points or weight limits in advance would be better
Wheel Nut:
I just popped into this thread again and picked up on the BOA weight restriction. The 17t MGW sign may be illegal as the new weights are 18tBut if you go over the bridge in an 18 tonner, you have exceeded the limit even if you are empty. and another thing, although the highway code may not be law, many of the signs & symbols that it depicts are,
To clarify:- You are right, AIUI, that a 17t MGW sign is technically illegal now as the regs have changed, but this particular sign (looking at Googlemaps) shows an 18t MGW prohibition (except permit holders) on the bridge itself ; it’s the approaches which can misleading by stating a 17t limit. Can I sue WCC for wasting my time with their misleading signage?
However, as has been mentioned elsewhere, much of the Highway Code IS law (in layman’s terms), with references in modern editions to the particular “act”.
OTS:
Its alright throwing these weight limits up , but where are the turnaround points , often these signs dont appear until its to late, and then your commited ,more turnaround points or weight limits in advance would be better
Also, how many are just because of ■■■■■■■ NIMBY’s, and there’s getting to be soo many of them appear on roads we’ve used with no problems for years, that it’s getting rediculous and no wonder they get ignored so often - if you get away with it once etc…
There’s a road I used to use quite a lot out of Wakefield, can’t remember which as it’s been a while since I was down there, but someone will know it, used to go down this road all the time, but now at the roundabout there’s a 7.5t warning, I didn’t notice it at 1st and the company had a word with me about going down there, the diversion route takes you down some ■■■■■■ roads and brings you out somewhere near the national coal mining museum and CHEP if I remember correctly.
I’ve been down a road that said no articulated vehicles, and it was a better road than the ‘approved route’ but went past some rich ■■■■■ house.