Payloads leeway

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JSB

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Hi, I am very new to motorhoming so please forgive me for my ignorance. I have read on gov.U.K. that there is up to a 5% leeway on payloads before you get fined for the vehicle being overweight.
Quote: A £100 penalty will be given for a 0% to 9.99% overload, but DVSA examiners will allow a 5% leeway before issuing a fixed penalty or prohibition, unless the relevant weight has been exceeded by 1 tonne or more.
Is this 5% of the total 3.5T ie 175kilos or 5% of the payload?
Our vehicle was down rated from 3850 to 3500 because of our licences. Thanks Sue
 
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JSB said:
Hi, I am very new to motorhoming so please forgive me for my ignorance. I have read on gov.U.K. that there is up to a 5% leeway on payloads before you get fined for the vehicle being overweight.
Quote: A £100 penalty will be given for a 0% to 9.99% overload, but DVSA examiners will allow a 5% leeway before issuing a fixed penalty or prohibition, unless the relevant weight has been exceeded by 1 tonne or more.
Is this 5% of the total 3.5T ie 175kilos or 5% of the payload?
Our vehicle was down rated from 3850 to 3500 because of our licences. Thanks Sue
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I have no specific knowledge, but this will almost certainly be 5% of the total MAM, 5% of 3500 kg. How would they know what the payload is? The payload figure quoted by the manufacturer, if you can actually find one, is pretty much pie in the sky, and is not quoted anywhere on your V5.
 
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I believe it's 5% total. The tolerance is to allow for potential inaccuracies in weigh bridges. If one weigh bridge is under reading by 2.5% and you max out your van accordingly. Then you get pulled over and that one is over reading by 2.5%. so you could be 5% over on their scales, so you were trying to be legal, but still appeared to be over. It's really not a good idea to rely on it.

And yes, many vans have a rediculously small payload when plated at 3500kg and really shouldn't be sold as such.
 
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It will be by the overloading of each of the axle weights rather than the overall vehicle weight.
You can be done for overloading the axle although may still be within the MAM

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Don't forget that if you annoy them enough to nick you, say you were 200kg overweight (so many are this much!). Then you may be inviting further penalties by overloading an axle and having incorrect tyre loading. These are separate offences.
 
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In the past I know it was the same with speed limits but it's only a tolerance for slightly inaccurate speeds/weights. If your actual payload includes the 5 - 10% leeway and your weighing machine is 5 - 10% over you are far too far over for the authorities to ignore it.
Sue
 
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The tolerance for public weighbridges is +or- 5% and your van can be 5% over i.e. 175Kg without a fine. The best thing to do is get your van weighed at a weighbridge then you'll know what your payload is.
 
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Jim said:
Don't forget that if you annoy them enough to nick you, say you were 200kg overweight (so many are this much!). Then you may be inviting further penalties by overloading an axle and having incorrect tyre loading. These are separate offences.
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Above is good advice. Although there is some guidance for enforcement agencies re weight limits it often depends on whether there is a campaign in operation and whether it is part of an awareness/education phase or enforcement aspect. In addition, although there may be advice offered for vehicles, say 4% overweight, if there is more than one offence then advice/a warning, may not be offered. So....if a vehicle is overweight on both an axle, and in total, as well as overloading of a tyres loading rate then I wouldn’t rely on just getting a warning. If you are very overweight then you may not be able to drive until the excess weight is removed.

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Two on Tour said:
It will be by the overloading of each of the axle weights rather than the overall vehicle weight.
You can be done for overloading the axle although may still be within the MAM
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I believe its both, axle weights and GVM. Quite a lot of "3500kgs" motorhomes are vulnerable to this although they mostly don't bother and focus on the commercials
 
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There are weigh cells in the tarmac on some motorways, trowel on the m1 I believe was the first. They use it to monitor truck axle weights but no reason they couldnt do the same for mh if they so wished.
 
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Chris/Tracy said:
There are weigh cells in the tarmac on some motorways, trowel on the m1 I believe was the first. They use it to monitor truck axle weights but no reason they couldnt do the same for mh if they so wished.
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Weigh in motion stuff is really not that accurate. It gets messed up by temperature differences in the carriageway. And even minor imperfections in the road causes dynamic loads that makes the measurement far more noisy. It's only really any good for helping to select which vehicles might be close to their limit so you know which ones to pull over and send to a proper static weigh bridge.
 
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JSB said:
Hi, I am very new to motorhoming so please forgive me for my ignorance. I have read on gov.U.K. that there is up to a 5% leeway on payloads before you get fined for the vehicle being overweight.
Quote: A £100 penalty will be given for a 0% to 9.99% overload, but DVSA examiners will allow a 5% leeway before issuing a fixed penalty or prohibition, unless the relevant weight has been exceeded by 1 tonne or more.
Is this 5% of the total 3.5T ie 175kilos or 5% of the payload?
Our vehicle was down rated from 3850 to 3500 because of our licences. Thanks Sue
Click to expand...
Jim said:
Don't forget that if you annoy them enough to nick you, say you were 200kg overweight (so many are this much!). Then you may be inviting further penalties by overloading an axle and having incorrect tyre loading. These are separate offences.
Click to expand...
your van is 3.5 you licence is 3.5 if you stick to it you will not have to worry . unload the stuff you dont use and get it weighed you will how light you can travel
I always carry far too many clothes
 
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Just to add my 5 Pennies worth, if your license is for max 3500kgs and your van comes in at 3675 kgs you could be liable for a fine as you are exceeding your legal threshold of your license.

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Phill D said:
Just to add my 5 Pennies worth, if your license is for max 3500kgs and your van comes in at 3675 kgs you could be liable for a fine as you are exceeding your legal threshold of your license.
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is it not 2penth
 
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5% of 3500kg
There's no way of weighing payload short of removing everything including things like towbar and solar panels and weighing it.
 
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Nanniemate said:
your van is 3.5 you licence is 3.5 if you stick to it you will not have to worry . unload the stuff you dont use and get it weighed you will how light you can travel
I always carry far too many clothes
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Absolutely. We had a 4005 kg van with a large payload so even just for the 2 of us we used to fill it. Always weighed before going away for more than a few days and was never overweight, but came very close lots of times. I think the lightest we ever travelled was 3850kg in the U.K. for a week away.

We took loads because we could and had a laugh at the clothes we took and never wore when we got home, mainly Sharon’s I may add 😜 I think she would take 8 different types of shoes, coats, jackets, dresses etc etc 😊 Not me, of course 😜

Now we have to retrain ourselves and be careful but I’ve never heard of anyone personally being stopped and on the continent the non U.K. vans I would say are ALL overweight, a big generalisation I know, but more likely true than not from my personal conversations with them.
 
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All the above discussion seems to be applicable to UK.

Overseas authorities might take a different view.

Does anyone want to do a table for what each EU country would do for being overweight?

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nicholsong said:
All the above discussion seems to be applicable to UK.

Overseas authorities might take a different view.

Does anyone want to do a table for what each EU country would do for being overweight?
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No (not me at least)
but here's a spreadsheet to help monitor the payload.
www.motorhomefun.co.uk

Inventory of payload

This is a spreadsheet to assess payload variations from a known weighbridge value and known list of contents at that weight. The invantory was compiled from my use and modified lists from FUN. Not all weights are accurate and reflect products/...
www.motorhomefun.co.uk www.motorhomefun.co.uk
 
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JSB said:
Hi, I am very new to motorhoming so please forgive me for my ignorance. I have read on gov.U.K. that there is up to a 5% leeway on payloads before you get fined for the vehicle being overweight.
Quote: A £100 penalty will be given for a 0% to 9.99% overload, but DVSA examiners will allow a 5% leeway before issuing a fixed penalty or prohibition, unless the relevant weight has been exceeded by 1 tonne or more.
Is this 5% of the total 3.5T ie 175kilos or 5% of the payload?
Our vehicle was down rated from 3850 to 3500 because of our licences. Thanks Sue
Click to expand...

If you only have a 3.5T licence, then you can only drive a 3.5T vehicle. The 5% will push you into being unlicensed, hence an academic discussion for you.

Should you have a pre 1997 licence with 7.5T (C1) then the discretionary 5% would be fine, as although exceeding the weight by a margin, you would still be licenced to drive a vehicle of >3.5T.
 
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Phill D said:
Just to add my 5 Pennies worth, if your license is for max 3500kgs and your van comes in at 3675 kgs you could be liable for a fine as you are exceeding your legal threshold of your license.
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Agree completely and just typed the same without noticing your post. The issue I think would be that the 5% leeway is academic as your not licenced to drive >3.5T.
 
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acropolis22 said:
Interesting article. But it only talks about commercial vehicles. The article mentions the 5% leeway. Do we know if this also applies to motorhomes? Probably. Do the police also have powers to check motorhomes? Probably.
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This article applies to commercial vans and trucks who are either carrying goods for reward or the companies own products. This information is easily found on the internet and is frequently incorrectly quoted in relation to private vehicles.
When authorities find overweight private vehicles there are different courses of action which are dependent on the circumstances. Minor offences might result in advice to the vehicles driver on the risks associated with being overweight. More serious weight issues may result in having to remove excess weight and a modest fine, it used to be £60, it may be different now.

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Maybe all those driving shoe-horned 3500kg vans should lobby for a change to allow a higher permissible weight before C1 is required - EVans are heading this way to give them an advantage
 
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Guigsy said:
Weigh in motion stuff is really not that accurate. It gets messed up by temperature differences in the carriageway. And even minor imperfections in the road causes dynamic loads that makes the measurement far more noisy. It's only really any good for helping to select which vehicles might be close to their limit so you know which ones to pull over and send to a proper static weigh bridge.
Click to expand...
Which is why there are camera's & sensors on the Southern M25 and a Government weigh station just off the M25 near Leatherhead plus mobile patrols.
 
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RioRob said:
The tolerance for public weighbridges is +or- 5% and your van can be 5% over i.e. 175Kg without a fine. The best thing to do is get your van weighed at a weighbridge then you'll know what your payload is.
Click to expand...
I think you will find that weighbridge tolerances are +/- 110kg for a plate weighbridge and +/-150kg per axle on a dynamic weighbridge.
So as long as you are 300kg under you will be fine. :giggle:
 
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