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The British Driving Society
Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire
& Hertfordshire Area
WELCOME TO OUR WEBSITE
bedsbh.britishdrivingsociety.co.uk
Remember to bookmark this
page.
Please use the index buttons on the left to find out what is happening in our Area and to get details of event organisers.
Area 10 Spring Show Champion Maurice Edmonds driving Baldwins First Impressions to a Lawton Roundback gig.
Luke Smith with Garstons Hot Property at a very wintery London Harness Horse parade 2008
Father Christmas 2007
Its Jill Steed with `George` acting as a reindeer with Father Christmas in Welwyn Garden City for John Lewis/Waitrose.
They donated £200 to the local RDA for his services!
BDS-Trec finals 2007
At the glorious venue of Elveden Hall in Suffolk, at the kind invitation of Lord & Lady Iveagh the BDS-Trec finals were held on 21st October, judged by Colin Hurd, West Sussex AC. For an unbelievable third year running , BBH member Jeanette Standen & her Welsh Sec D Glynceiriog Llywelyn (Lew!) together with groom Georgie Bilborough came out as Champions, showing full understanding of the idea and skills involved. Well done!
30th Anniversary Tandem Meet 2007
Martin Yemm with his Fell Ponies Rhummi and Alex attended the 30th Anniversary meet of the Tandem Club of Great Britain at Hermitage College, Berkshire. Martin was proud to be one of the new tandem drivers this year to gain his Tandem Bars.
Co-judge Malcolm Salter, presenting the reserve supreme show trophy to Stephen Brown from Radlett, Herts. He also won the light trade class with Drumbo Great Expectations.
Show Champion was Gary Docking driving Marion Woolleys lovely Dutch Warmblood, Striker. It was a really wet day with hugely reduced entries, but full marks to everyone who did come along either to compete, watch or help !
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The International League for the Protection of Horses (ILPH) has received more
calls about ragwort this summer than ever before.
The leading equine charity says horse owners need to be extra vigilant. Increased rainfall and uncut verges, due to the wet weather, have left the yellow weed at "epidemic levels". According to botanists, ragwort is spreading at a rate of 10% per year. Ragwort is the scourge of pony paddocks across the country. The yellow blossoms look pretty to the untrained eye, but horse owners know to treat the weed with caution. Professor Derek Knottenbelt from Liverpool University estimates that 500 to 1,000 horses in the UK die from eating ragwort each year. He said the actual figure is likely to be significantly higher, because ragwort poisoning is not easy to detect. "Victims can die of bleeding, chronic dementia or weight loss all of which are rarely attributed to ragwort," said Prof Knottenbelt. "It can take two years of regular ingesting for complete liver failure to occur — resulting in a slow and painful death." If you find ragwort in your fields, spraying or digging it up are the best ways of tackling it. Make sure you wear a dust mask to prevent inhalation and vinyl gloves to stop the toxins entering the bloodstream: the alkaloid toxins contained within the plant are extremely harmful to humans too. Even cutting the flower heads off can help because each plant head is capable of spawning 175,000 plants the following year. 10/09/07 |
Driving an overweight horsebox is illegal and dangerous, but there are things you can do to help stay within the legal limits.
More and more horseboxes are being pulled over by the police and escorted to a weighbridge for a spot check as the Vehicle and Operators Services Agency (VOSA) tries to tackle the number of overloaded vehicles on the road.
"VOSA is implementing a system of targeted enforcement," says technical officer Steve Whitehart. "Horseboxes, due to their high unladen weight and the tendency for them to have a relatively low Gross Vehicle Weight [GVW, the maximum permitted weight of the vehicle, including passengers, horses and equipment] do have a high incidence of overloading."
Drivers often mistakenly think that a 7.5-tonne lorry, for example, means the weight of the vehicle, rather than the limit you are allowed to carry. To complicate matters further, it is also illegal to carry too much weight on either the front or back axle, and you may be asked to redistribute the weight more evenly.
If your lorry is found to be overloaded a prohibition notice will be issued, banning it from being driven. To clear the prohibition, another vehicle may have to transport the excess load, and in some instances temporary accommodation for your horses may have to be arranged. You could then face prosecution with a maximum fine of £5,000, as well as licence penalty points. If your vehicle is overloaded, insurance cover also becomes void — an unappealing proposition if you are involved in an accident.
Jon Phillips, managing director of the Organisation of Horsebox and Trailer Owners (OHTO), says: "I believe there are many overweight horseboxes on the road, not because people are knowingly breaking the law, but they simply don't realise. People tend to get caught out when they do the one big summer show, as there are often more passengers and extra kit on board."
So how much weight can you legally transport? All vehicles over 3.5 tonnes are tested by VOSA when they are first registered and given a ministry plate, which should be displayed in the cab. This will show the GVW measured in metric tonnes, such as 3.5 tonne, 7.5 tonne, up to 44 tonne.
To find out the weight legally available to you, empty the lorry — except for a full fuel tank and the driver — and weigh it at a public weighbridge (found in most towns — contact your local council, Trading Standards office or MOT testing station). The difference between the GVW and the unladen weight is known as the payload — the amount you can legally carry.
A payload of two tonnes, for instance, may sound ample until you consider that a typical horse can weigh up to 650kg, a pony up to 450kg, 80 gallons of water could be the equivalent weight of another horse and just one bag of feed is approximately 20kg.
December 4, 2006
Pictured above are Jackie & Alan from Potton, Beds at the Burwell sponsored drive - with Maisie May.
