Interesting Info On Towing Limits

[Whitelighter]

Good luck with that.

For private motorists the police use the stated maximum towing weights the manufacturer has homologated for the vehicle. It will either be on the VIN plate or in your V5 document. The police and VOSA do spot checks targeting caravan and boat outfits. There is plenty of the caravan forums about it.From a caravan forum, Nov 2012


There is, as suggested in the leaflet, a tendency for them to issue a warning, or a prohibition notice rather than prosecute.

Yes you saw transit type vans (commercial) and lorries (commercial)

Anyway, I'm not getting dragged into another argument about this so you tow in whichever way you feel comfortable.

The VOSA regs are for plated vehicles, as I described. I don't need luck I understand the rules.

 

[Seagreen]

Well. That is pretty remote. I wonder if a bit of local sweet-talking would work with http://www.mcfadyenscontractors.co.uk/quarrying.html

Or talking to Shanks may reveal the location of a weighbridge.

Having just checked the Devon County Council website, it seems that all "public" weighbridges are actually "private", except they will allow the public to use them for a fee, between £5 -£10 in Devon. Seems to be quite a few locally, usually quarries, waste companies, feed merchants etc., who will certificate your load for you. I assume this is the same in Scotland as in England, and the local quarry may be obliging.

 

[Lakesailor]

Quite so. My local quarry (Kendal - 9 miles) does the service.

If you drive on to the platform and go into the office and say "I don't need a certificate" they usually don't charge you. If you want the certificate they charge £5.
If you check with them first they may do a Gross Train Weight (including tow vehicle) and a Gross Trailer Weight (trailer and load alone) on the same ticket, still at £5

 

[Niander]

O yeah forgot about them!
anyway need a landrover/discovery type me thinks
probably will have to hire one...:/

 

[Lakesailor]

Opening up a whole new can of worms.....I know two people with boats who tow them to and from the lake with their tractors. Depends how far you need to go I suppose.

 

[Niander]

200 miles!...

 

[NorthUp]

200 miles!...

Nothing at Campbeltown harbour? No bulk cargo any more? If the RoRo ferry was sailing from there previously, they must have weighed the HGV's.

 

[BAtoo]

I know two people with boats who tow them to and from the lake with their tractors.

Which is almost certainly illegal on the public highway....not an agricultural practice.

 

[Steve_N]

It seems that weighbridges with 50 ton capacity are checked every three months and need to be within 2% accuracy. But the question is - do they check over the whole range? When you check your unbraked trailer to see if it is more than 750Kgs or braked trailer to see if it is over 1800Kgs, or whatever it is rated at, is it as accurate at the low level loading end of the range.

To be certified as a public weighbridge the one in your example claiming 2% accuracy at 50 tons must be accurate to half that tolerance i.e. 1% at weights up to 5 tons. I used to have a link to a VOSA document that clarified this but the link is dead now so sorry but I can't prove what I've just said! My own evidence does kind of back this up though: I've made about 20 trips with car+trailer to my local sand & gravel quarry (which is also my nearest public weighbridge) recently and the weight-in is always consistent and even seems to accurately reflect how much fuel is in the tank and what I had for breakfast

This is a comprehensive directory of public weighbridges:
http://chrishodgetrucks.co.uk/useful-info/weighbridges.htm
For the poster from Cambletown it looks like a trip to Oban :-(

 

[Lakesailor]

Strangely I also found that the link was dead again although I had accessed it the day before.
Does the weighbridge you use have 10kg cells that go up in 10kg increments? Your list of weighbridges is not exhaustive however. The quarry I go to in Kendal is not listed, it's operated by SITA UK as a Waste Transfer Station. It may be that the quarry in Campeltown will "do him", being local.

I think the ones supplied by the company I linked to are more accurate still.