It was all going so well. I had collected the lorry at 3pm on the Monday afternoon. After some pruning of the pine tree I got it onto the drive. Brothers and sisters were arriving to help with the loading. Charlotte was vacuuming as each room was vacated. By 9pm all was completed. I drove the lorry to the Cridders’ place, walked over to Sandra’s where we had a Chinese takeaway and slept in her bed. Sadly she vacated to the sofa. That would have been a warm and cosy last Dorset night. The Cridders hit the road at 4am and we followed shortly after 7am and a large fry-up. Somewhere in the vicinity of Gloucester we had a text from them saying that they were near Stoke and were about to have breakfast. By Warrington I was thinking about a refuel – there’s a Shell garage on the A580 St Helen’s junction where the prices are normal rather than inflated for the motorway captive audience. And then we had another text – ‘we have been pulled over’. Speeding? Swerving and swaying? Driving without due care and attention? Disconcertedly we proceeded to refuel whilst further information trickled through. They had been taken to junction 1a (there’s not one of those on the M6 in Lancashire) where they had been put on a weighbridge and found to be overweight! So was the lorry. Even without Rachel in the passenger seat did the problem persist. Junction 1a proved to be on the M65 and that’s where we found them – in a windblown concrete wilderness with giant bathroom scales, a shed and lots of orange cones!
Now here’s the deal. Had we been a commercial operation we would have been hit with a £300 spot fine. Everyone gets one hour to sort the problem after which they are clamped and charged £80 for release. I’m all for road safety. Traffic law and the enforcement thereof is what make roads a relatively safe mode of transport. Spot fining commercial operations for being overweight? Maybe that’s fair. I suppose that if transport is partially or entirely your business then really you should know better. As for me I simply hired a truck, loaded it and departed. Where in North Dorset can I weigh a lorry? I have been wracking my brains but the only public weighbridge I know of is at the junction of the A303 and A36 in the Wylye Valley and that’s miles out of the way. And where does the clamping come from? Surely, having one’s journey unexpectedly terminated at Preston of all places is punishment enough. With a backup vehicle and five able bodies we were able to resolve the matter in around four hours. Imagine if it had been just the three of us in the truck. No means of getting into Preston, no storage facilities on site. We could have been there for weeks!
As it happens, the Cridlands are such delightful and charming people that they had become lifetime buddies of the woman in charge. By the time we arrived she had supplied a list of hire companies, with phone numbers, and they were working their way through it. Derek at Easirent seemed to be most promising. He had a selection of vans and was able to supply an Edinburgh airport return point. What type of van? We were overweight by 1.5 tonnes. Most obvious was a 3.5t Luton but due to the weight of the tail-lift and body work they have a payload of a mere 900kg. So we ended up with a VW Crafter which was much smaller but could take the weight. I wonder how over laden were the Clarkes on their move to Skye? The Cridlands’ new best friend had even printed off the release note two hours before we actually departed.
The story is not yet complete. Easirent is on one side of a dual carriageway in Preston. To get back on to the other side I took a right turn at some lights and went round the block. Normal urban streets. Nothing unusual. The car I was following slowed and stopped. I did the same. Its reversing lights came on; without any further indication or warning it proceeded to reverse into the front of the van I had just hired. Apparently he wanted to park in a gap that was beside where I had stopped. That there was a huge white monstrosity behind him clearly didn’t register. Cridders took photos of the scene; I got the driver details; Joe Mulgrew refused to sign a statement… more delays, more stress, more aggro.
Eventually we got on our way. Linda and I in the smaller vehicles got to the Davison’s place by 8pm. Food was awaiting and so was a bed for the night for Steve and Rachel. They arrived about an hour later. We saw them the following morning. By 10:30am the truck had been unloaded and they departed almost immediately. I too had to leave by 11am to get the van back to Edinburgh by lunchtime. The lad did a visual of the van and didn’t notice a new dent in the front, and I didn’t point it out. But shortly afterwards I had a call from LV to say that the driver had accepted full liability. As it wasn’t my vehicle I simply passed on the contact details of Easirent. But I did feel a tinge of guiltiness at not having said anything! I have heard nothing further so I guess my £100 excess is safe.
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