An email was sent by one of our supporters ref:- Golden Boy Coaches travelling through Waltham Abbey using 7.5 tonne restricted roads. Please find the email and response from Golden Boy

To: [email protected]

Subject: Overweight

Good morning can you please advise as to why your vehicles are regularly driving through Waltham Abbey thus breaching the 7.5T weight restriction.

Access to addresses within the restricted area is permitted to overweight vehicles but not using the area as a thoroughfare.

Regards

From: Steve Leftwich <[email protected]>

Sent: 30 November 2018 11:30

Sent on behalf of WARA

Dear Mr Leftwich,

Thank you for your email regarding our vehicles driving through Waltham Abbey and allegedly breaching the 7.5T weight restriction.

Unfortunately there is a common misconception that the 7.5T weight restriction applies to all vehicles when in fact it does not. I have personally been stopped whilst driving a coach through a 7.5T weight restriction by an Officer of the Metropolitan Police. I was surprised to find out that he shared the same misconception. Fortunately after much discussion the Officer allowed me to continue my journey having clarified that no offence had been committed.

To avoid future confusion and to answer queries such as yours we asked the Department of Transport for the exact wording regarding a 7.5T weight restriction as indicated by the sign below…

The Department of Transport said…

“The sign to diagram 622.1A is used to give effect to an order prohibiting goods vehicles with a plated maximum gross weight exceeding that shown on the sign (indicated in tonnes). The restriction applies to such vehicles even if they are unladen or they are the towing tractors of articulated vehicles and in these conditions their weight is below that shown on the sign. This sign is used when goods vehicles are prohibited for environmental reasons, e.g. where roads are narrow and unsuitable for large vehicles, or to protect residents from the nuisance caused by lorries in residential streets. The sign is not used for structural limits, such as those to protect weak bridges.”

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From this reply you will notice that the restriction only applies to goods vehicles e.g. HGV’s/Lorries carrying goods. We only operate passenger carrying vehicles such as coaches and buses that do not fall into the same category as a goods vehicle. If a restriction is put in place to prevent coaches or buses using a certain road it would be indicated using the sign below:-

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I sincerely hope that this clarifies the issue for you and I would be grateful if you could pass this information onto the other members of the WARA so that they can see that our vehicles are not committing an offence in anyway. If you would like to discuss the matter further I am at my desk most days and would be happy to receive a call.

Kind regardsAndy Wing TM