anyway Harry best of luck . i used to have a few sleepness nights before a visit i say visit but because my yard was about 800yds from test station i normaly took unit and trailer to them ministry men reckon they always kept a “watchful” eye on my trucks anyway…
Harry Monk:
I haven’t been invited to any seminar so I presume that different Traffic Areas have different policies on this.
I had the same seminar thing as xfmatt, but then we only lives a few miles apart and we’re in the same traffic area so that’s perhaps no surprise.
Paul
I have acted as TM for several new hauliers in the last 25 years,and most of them have had a visit within a couple of months after starting operating.
Yep, I remember an obsession with wall planners and, don’t know how that’ll work with just a parking space if you haven’t got an office. Mine have always been wheel tappers focused on maintenance rather than tachograph records.
Defect book isn’t mandatory for an owner driver (says so somewhere in VOSA’s actual literature) probably good from a monkey-grooming point of view though. Personally, if I was a VOSA inspector I’d rather see a glovebox full of boxes of bulbs with greasy fingerprints on them than pointless pages of nil defect.
They do seem to expect to find things though when in reality a brand new truck with a careful driver can go through many consecutive inspections without any defects needing rectification. With LEDs even bulb changes are on the way out.
A Nil defect reporting system is part of your maintenance undertaking, iirc Harry.
When I had my new operator visit they went through everything. Also thoroughly checked at the Public Inquiry too.
Don’t recommend one of those. 
They’ll want to find something wrong, it’s in their nature. Smile and nod.
Goaty:
They’ll want to find something wrong, it’s in their nature. Smile and nod.
I’m sure they will although hopefully the big picture will look ok. Truck should be ok, had its six-weekly inspection last weekend, tachos should be ok with the few minor infringements mentioned, as you say smile and nod, maybe a tug of the forelock here and there and plenty of “Yaas Baas, mmmmm hmmmm, I sho’ will do dat ting for you” 
The Vosa people that I have met and have had contact with have been helpful,and try and help the hauliers.Unless you are a cowboy operator.I don’t think they will give you a hard time.
The roadside merchants can be more officious.
Since it is a bit on the parky side at present make sure the screenwash mix is strong enough. An easily visible note on the dash supposedly to remind you to get a spare pair of wiperblades ought to impress.
kr79:
If your inspection paperwork is ok and when they do a check on the truck it’s all ok that’s it realy.
Point to remember what the other guy said. About the garage taking the truck for test and failing and going against the I license. I know someone had this and it was a Volvo main dealer done his maintenance and he didn’t know anything of it until be had a visit and was told he only had a first pass rate of 40%.
I know you use Renault main dealer and obviously be aware of this if they do your mot as if it failed that gives you as a one truck operation a 100% fail rate.
Anyway good luck anyway
I find this very strange, i,ve only ever bought 1 truck brand new and Mercedes did all the servicing/ MOT etc, the last time they took it for test it failed on a headlight out of alignment so i kicked off saying they should have checked it before they went and i now have a black mark because of their incompetence, i was informed by the manager and upon further investigation at the test centre i was told that as merc had booked it in under there name and not myself it didnt go against me
Best of luck Harry.
Dee
Ta, I’ll let you all know. I agree with Dave though, in 26 years I’ve had my fair share of controls and I’ve never found them to be anything other than reasonable. They have always come across to me as being after operators who simply think the Law doesn’t apply to them, rather than someone who is trying his best but occasionally making minor errors.
chaversdad:
kr79:
If your inspection paperwork is ok and when they do a check on the truck it’s all ok that’s it realy.
Point to remember what the other guy said. About the garage taking the truck for test and failing and going against the I license. I know someone had this and it was a Volvo main dealer done his maintenance and he didn’t know anything of it until be had a visit and was told he only had a first pass rate of 40%.
I know you use Renault main dealer and obviously be aware of this if they do your mot as if it failed that gives you as a one truck operation a 100% fail rate.
Anyway good luck anywayI find this very strange, i,ve only ever bought 1 truck brand new and Mercedes did all the servicing/ MOT etc, the last time they took it for test it failed on a headlight out of alignment so i kicked off saying they should have checked it before they went and i now have a black mark because of their incompetence, i was informed by the manager and upon further investigation at the test centre i was told that as merc had booked it in under there name and not myself it didnt go against me
Just going on what I was told.
All done and dusted, and they went away happy.
Nice one.
And, breathe! 
Can’t find the LIKE button !
Just for anyone else who gets a new operator check, I’ll run through what happened.
There were two chaps from the Dover VOSA office. From the word go, they were very friendly, in fact even beforehand they had been very helpful in accommodating my request for a visit first thing on a Monday morning to cause me as little downtime as possible.
We needed to run through paperwork, they asked me if I had an office, I said “Do I look like I’ve got an office?” I said we could either go sit in the reception at KTS Renault, who I kindly allow to share my yard, or we could sit in the truck, I’d got there early and had the night heater running for half an hour so it was nice and warm. I sat on the bunk and one of them got in each side.
They didn’t do a mechanical inspection, and weren’t interested in daily check sheets or servicing records, all they were there for was to check administration and compliance. They had a check sheet and just ran through it, all all the way we were just chatting in general about what I do, what I’d done in the past, what my plans are for the future as well as just some general chat about families, life, the universe and everything.
I expect I’ll get a bit of a slagging off from the unemployed losers on the fake Facebook page for posting this but here’s goes anyway. I’m thinking it might help someone starting out in the future, I’ll always help anyone as far as possible with the process.
All in all I’d say it was a positive experience. They did at one point run through the VOSA script of telling me how to inform on operators who run illegally and I said “I know plenty but I’m not telling you because I’m just not a grass” and they took that in good grace and moved on.
They told me that I had been “grey” on the OCRS system, this was new to me but they said that grey is the category which all new operators start on, meaning they have had no contact with VOSA, but now I would go to green, which is obviously the result I was hoping for. 
Thanks for the help and advice etc.
things must have changed slightly as when i had mine 13 odd years ago he came with his overalls and insisted the truck was over a pit, then we went onto the general chit chat, looks like they have dropped the inspection part of it
Glad it went ok for you anyway
Chaversdad, I’ve had a Scania and a Magnum fail on the parking brake, both 4x2s with park brake on drive axle only and they still have to meet the 12% of design weight criteria, both had a reline within a month of test and new brake chambers immediately prior and both failed, I got around the Magnum by having a brake test only before the test and when I knew it wouldn’t pass, by using a trailer with concrete blocks set up for 6 wheelers so it had a load of weight on it and it just scraped through, but that poxy Scania was a nightmare. I ended up speaking to an engineer I know at Scania HQ and he put me straight on how to get the design weight lowered to 40tons so it would pass, which it did 
I phoned up Cambridge (I was Eastern Traffic Area) and told them all about it, bloke there told me I’d done the right thing as I was moved straight to the top of the must visit list after the MOT fail 
The defect book is a must do IMHO, VOSA want to see a paper trail and the defect book is a perfect way to show them one, anyone with half a brain knows that lorries don’t only breakdown/need repairs in the yard or at their 6 weekly inspection, so a bulb change/leaky brake chamber/whatever here and there makes things look real. If VOSA go through your paperwork and see charges for parts and repairs that have not been noted in a defect book or similar then they know that your maintenance records are incorrect and you’ll be for the high jump, best to put a tick in a box and do it properly I reckon 
newmercman:
Chaversdad, I’ve had a Scania and a Magnum fail on the parking brake, both 4x2s with park brake on drive axle only and they still have to meet the 12% of design weight criteria, both had a reline within a month of test and new brake chambers immediately prior and both failed, I got around the Magnum by having a brake test only before the test and when I knew it wouldn’t pass, by using a trailer with concrete blocks set up for 6 wheelers so it had a load of weight on it and it just scraped through, but that poxy Scania was a nightmare. I ended up speaking to an engineer I know at Scania HQ and he put me straight on how to get the design weight lowered to 40tons so it would pass, which it didI phoned up Cambridge (I was Eastern Traffic Area) and told them all about it, bloke there told me I’d done the right thing as I was moved straight to the top of the must visit list after the MOT fail
We have this a lot, I have to put new pads in one of mine every year to get it through, very annoying when it obviously isn’t a maintenance issue.