Courier Business Stuff

This really is old news now but it’s surprising how many commercial vehicle drivers, particularly same day couriers and other drivers of vans below 3500kg GVW, aren’t aware of this system and how much it affects their chances of being caught if they take a risk and overload their vehicle.

The system, known as VIPER, involves weight sensors actually embedded within the road surface (known as WIMS – Weigh-In Motion System) which measure the weight of each axle going over them to within 5% accuracy. The vehicle details are checked using ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) and the VOSA operative in front of his computer immediately takes the decision whether to request that the vehicle’s stopped and brought in for accurate weighing at the VOSA weighbridge.

During the trials of the system from June 2004 to December 2005 VOSA reported a 700% improvement in the accuracy of their vehicle stops for suspected overloading. Out of Read More…

Posted under Courier Basics, Legal Issues, Vans, Weight Limits for Vans

VOSA to target illegal vehicles using Civica and Applied Traffic’s VIPER ANPR/WIMS solution… Here

It doesn’t automatically fine you – it just ‘suggests’ to the people at the checkpoint up ahead that it would be a good idea to stop a certain vehicle rather than pulling one at random.

It’s been used for the last 2 years apparently. A brilliant system as far as I can see.

Now I wonder how long it will be before they start using ANPR to catch drivers over their hours.

Posted under Weight Limits for Vans

It’s one of the underlying principles of the EU that things like this are dealt with consistently throughout the union – hence unified drivers’ hours laws, ADR, CMR etc. EU law states (somewhere) that if a vehicle can be driven legally in one member country then it can be driven in all member countries. If not it would give one member an advantage over another and breach some directive somewhere.

Posted under Insurance for Couriers, Uncategorized, Weight Limits for Vans