Is foreign trailer exempt?
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Can you advise me on the use of Dutch-registered trailers in the UK?
As an owner-driver I provide traction work for a freight forwarder. The British trailer I used has been replaced with a new Dutch-registered one which is not fitted with sideguards, under-run bar, side marker lights, rear fog lights, spray suppression flaps or mudguards.
I will be pulling it more or less permanently and would like to know if it is legal without this equipment.
Do I have to put a GB or NL sticker on the back of the trailer?
A On the information given, the exemption from the under-run bar and sideguard requirements, given to foreign vehicles visiting this country, would not be available to the trailer in question.
Regulations 49 and 51 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 state that the above requirements do not apply to "a trailer having a base or centre in a country outside Great Britain from which it normally starts its journeys, provided that a period of not more than 12 months has elapsed since the vehicle was last brought into Great Britain".
As you will be pulling the trailier on a more or less permanent basis from a British base the stipulation that the trailer should normally start its journeys from a base in another country would not be fulfilled.
Exemptions from spray suppression equipment and mudguards are given in Regulation 5 of the Construction and Use Regulations. It states that exemptions are given to a vehicle brought temporarily into Great Britain by a person resident abroad, provided the vehicle complies with either the 1949 Geneva Convention on Road Traffic or the 1926 Paris Convention of Road Traffic.
As these conventions provide for very basic requirements the trailer will most likely comply with them, Neither convention refers to spray suppression or mudguards.
But notice that the trailer has to be brought into Great Britain by a person resident abroad.
Exemption from British rules on the fitting of lamps and reflectors is given in Regulation 5 of the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989. Exemptions are given to: (a) a vehicle having a base or centre in a country outside Great Britain from which it normally starts its journeys, provided that a period of not more than 12 months has elapsed since the vehicle was last brought into GB; (b) a visiting vehicle (defined as a vehicle brought temporarily into Great Britain by a person resident outside the United Kingdom); (c) a combination of vehicles which includes a vehicle in (a) or (b) as long as, in each case, the vehicle complies with the above named conventions.
Again, the bar to the
trailer coming within paragraph (a) is that it would not normally be starting its journeys from an outside country. And for the trailer to come within paragraph (b) it has to be brought into Great Britain by a foreign resident.
When the trailer is drawn by a British-registered tractive unit in the UK it does not require a nationality sticker at the back.