NOT A LOT OF BOTTLE
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Coach operators are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If they run to their vehicles' plated capacity they are likely to break the law; but if they run light they could end up making a loss. Are current PSV weight limits a nonsense?
• When Kent police began weighing coaches on their way back from France — and making the hapless passengers leave their duty-free goods behind — they threw the problem of PSV weights into sharper focus than most users would wish. For this problem has always been present, particularly for long-distance coaches, but it has largely been swept under the carpet.
Part of the difficulty is that the law is not all that precise on the subject. Unlike goods vehicles, PSVs have certificated weights, which are arrived at by calculation from the unladen figure. The actual weights could well be different — and often are.
The number of imported chassis in the UK has exacerbated the problem, and it is possible to exceed the UK's 17-tonne two-axle limit with a full load on some of the heavier chassis. Imported chassis tend to be heavier because the maximum weights allowed in other European countries are higher (the Dutch, for example, allow 20 tonnes).
CONTINENTAL WORK
To get work on Continental trips, the minimum fittings necessary include toilets, a bar, and probably a video. All this adds weight; a modern long-distance coach may tare out at about 12 tonnes with some bodies. Add 54 passengers, luggage and the crew and it doesn't take long to reach 17 tonnes.
The present "official" certification figures allow 65kg per passenger plus 10kg for luggage. Alternatively, 100kg per m3 of luggage space can be used for the calculation, whichever is the less. For vehicles in use before April 1988, which is most of them, the weights were allowed at 10 stones (63,5kg) per passenger, with no luggage allowance.
After a cross-channel supermarket shopping excursion, the actual weight of the vehicle with a full load of passengers and all their purchases could easily be over its certificated weight. This is particularly likely if the passengers are not "average". They might, for example, be rugby players, who are not likely to average out at 10 stone!
This puts the operator in an invidious position. Should he weigh the passengers? Clearly that is impracticable. But he can hardly be expected to guess their weights, or to attempt to restrict what they buy on the trip (pity the driver who asks a rugby club to forgo its ale). This is precisely why the "average" system was accepted in the first place.
The averages have been worked out by a number of studies covering many thousands of passengers, but they are just that — average. The attitude of some of the enforcement staff over the last couple of years has not been in the least sympathetic. Passengers and their luggage have been turned off, because either the gross weight, the plated weight or one or other of the axle weights has been exceeded. Enforcers seem to take the attitude that the coach is no different from an HGV. But it is different, and that is why the regulations were so framed. Indeed, it is doubtful if making a passenger-carrying vehicle divert from its route to go to a weighbridge is within the powers of the police or authorised traffic examiners at all, since in theory they are "arresting" the passengers.
The size of the problem can be gauged by one statistic. The amount of canned beer that the Customs will let you bring in would weigh about as much as the average passenger. So theoretically if they all buy beer, half of them will have to get off at Dover.
Even with no extra over the average passenger figures, some chassis weigh so much now that there is as little as 35kg to play with before the limits are exceeded. The situation was eased slightly when weights went up from 16.26 to 17 tonnes in April last year, but it has not cured the problem, merely made it less frequent.
ON THE MOVE
It is not often realised that the passengercarrying vehicle suffers the same problem of axle overload with decreasing weights as does the goods vehicle. If half the passengers get off the bus many of the rest tend to move forward, and this can easily overload the front axle which is often likely to be plated to only 6,600kg or less. Some specifications leave very little tolerance in the front and rear plated weights.
Look for at least half a tonne capacity to spare if you want to avoid this problem — or you may have to make the passengers sit where you tell them!
On an HGV it is usual to allow 5% tolerance in the measured weights, but n( such allowance seems to be permitted on a PSV where, it could be argued, it is even more necessary. The averaging system works well until someone actually wants to weigh an individual vehicle.
Whether the vehicle is in fact dangerou or road damaging in this overladen state i also arguable. Compared to an HGV tractor, the wheelbase is far longer, so it is kinder to bridges. And why should a vehi de be inherently less safe just because it crosses the Channel, where permitted weights are higher?
But don't wait up for higher weights to come here. The EC Council of Ministers has given to the UK and Ireland a derow tion from higher PSV weights until 1998.
Having "discovered" the problem, the DTp should either issue clear instruction: on how the law is to be interpreted (though they are notoriously reluctant to do that), or the existing average system must be abandoned and replaced with HGV-type legislation.
Either a PSV can carry the number of passengers shown on it, or it can't. At present this law is an ass.
LJ by John Parsons