RV FEATURE
Vehicles are engineered to handle certain
amounts of weight, either in or on them,
or towed behind them. While the respective
manufacturers’ engineers would no doubt
allowed some leeway with the weight
maximums they have set (in other words,
the vehicle won’t break if it’s a couple kilos
over), the law does not.
The maximum Gross Vehicle Mass and Gross
Combined Mass figures set by manufacturers
are not just advisory – they are legal
requirements. While we caravanners have
been pretty much left alone by the road
authorities in the past, as the pursuit has
become more popular so too has the focus on
us. Spot weight checks by state road authority
are not frequent, but they can and do occur.
CONSEQUENCES
It’s not just the law you’ll be breaking by
being overloaded, there’s the risk that if
you crash and the cause is investigated
that your insurance will not be valid. If you
crash and injure or kill someone because
you have an overloaded rig, all bets are off.
Manslaughter charges are not a fanciful
proposition in such a situation.
Even if you weigh yourself and any
occupants and your luggage, and then go
by the manufacturer-supplied weights
(vehicle kerb mass and caravan Tare) to
calculate exactly how much your rig weighs,
you may already be in trouble. Both vehicle
and van weights can be out, sometimes by
several hundred kilos.
To remove the guesswork about what your
rig weighs, you should load it up as you
”MANSLAUGHTER
CHARGES ARE
NOT A FANCIFUL
PROPOSITION.”
would for a tour and get it over a public
weighbridge or make use of the growing
number of private caravan weighing
companies. This is the only way you will
get the facts about your rig’s weight.
While there are many vehicles available
to caravanners with a 3500kg towing
capacity, the true maximum towing capacity
of such vehicles is often hampered by their
Gross Combined Mass. Either you can tow
3500kg or you can have a big payload in
the vehicle – but, with some exceptions, you
can’t have both.
Because the trailer’s towball mass (TBM)
becomes part of the vehicle’s payload (that
mass is imposed on the vehicle’s towball),
with any vehicle you’ll have to subtract
that TBM from your available payload
capacity before you consider any other
weight in the car, which includes occupants,
luggage and accessories.
You can easily be in a position where you
have to either reduce the amount of luggage,
occupants or accessories, or reduce TBM, to
stay within your vehicle’s GVM.
The one-tonne utes have another problem.
Because they are designed to be load-carriers,
most have a respectable payload capacity –
but much of that is lost if you want to tow the
maximum weight (3500kg) and stay within
GCM. With a ute loaded up to GVM (which, of
course, must include towball mass), most are
only able to tow around 3000kg while staying
within GCM.
/ 19