Q We have just purchased a Dodge 28 ton-artic unit for
Page 70
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
transporting our drainage machine with a semi-low-load trailer; this unit will also be used to trans
port hay, straw and grain from our farm, and to collect the occasional load of land drains and concrete pipes. This unit will
not be on the road for about a month as I have to pass my hgv I first and, as we
have always hired haulage contractors to transport plant and materials we know very little about how the law stands for transporting machines and produce. We do not intend hauling for other people.
Could you please tell us:—
(a) Do we have to keep logsheets? (b) Da we have to noel), the police before moving a bulldozer with a 12ft blade and have we got to have a second man in the cab?
(c) Are we governed by drivers' hours when we leave the yard at 7 am with the unit, transport a machine 20 miles, operate the machine all day and use the unit as transport to get home in the evening? (d) Is there anything else we should know?
(e) How far in advance do we have to book up for plating (due January 1974)?
A The answers to your questions are as follows:—
• (a) Your drivers need to keep records of hours worked if they drive for more than four hours on roads on any day in any one week. If they drive for less than four hours each day on roads and do not go outside a 25-mile radius from the vehicle's base then they do not have to keep records. (b) Dimensions concerning vehicle widths are expressed in metres in the C and U Regulations; 12ft, the width of your bulldozer blade, is about 3.66 metres. Where a load is wider than 3.5 metres an attendant must be carried and the police must be informed of the movement of the Load two clear days before it is moved.
(c) Drivers who drive goods vehicles for no more than four hours on each day of any working week are exempt from all the limits relating to hours of duty and rest for the whole of the working week. Time spent driving elsewhere than on a road, if the vehicle is being driven in the course of agriculture or forestry, is not counted as driving for the purpose of calculating the amount of driving undertaken by that driver. (d) You must apply for an operator's licence In Your case, application must be made to the Licensing Authority, Western traffic area, The . Gaunts House, Denmark Street, Bristol, BS1 5DR. Application forms and booklets explaining operators' licensing may be obtained from the same address.
(e) Application for vehicle testing should be made to the Department of the Environment, Goods Vehicle Centre, 91-92 The Strand, Swansea, Glamorgan, as early as possible and in any case at least one month before the test is required.