Volumetric mixers could become subject to LGV regulations

The days of volumetric mixers operating on the roads at weights of over 32 tonnes under regulations originally intended to apply to mobile cranes and other wheeled plant may be numbered, according to roads minister Robert Goodwill.

Goodwill told the parliamentary select committee on transport: “It has been brought to my attention that the regulations which are quite rightly there to allow some plant such as mobile cranes to operate outside [LGV] regulations also have come to apply to volumetric mixers.

“Because these are classified as plant, and not LGVs, they are exempt from drivers’ hours, they’re exempt from the MOT testing, a whole variety of testing.

“I’ve noticed there are an increasingly large number of these vehicles on our roads. They compete on what many would describe as an unfair basis with the traditional ready-mix trucks and because they don’t have to comply with all the regulations I am concerned as to the safety and operation of these vehicles.

“I am very keen to see how we can bring these vehicles within the regulations because many of the non-compliant vehicles on our roads will be this type of vehicle.

“I think basically we’ve identified a loophole that needs closing. I think operators of volumetric mixers will be very disappointed to hear what I’ve just said.”

The volumetric mixers currently qualify as ‘plant’ because they carry a number of separate materials (sand, cement etc), which they measure and mix into concrete on site. In contrast, conventional barrel mixers are loaded with the finished product at the batching plant and deliver it ready-mixed onto the site; hence they are counted as trucks, not plant.

Because they are plant, volumetric mixers can operate at weights beyond 32 tonnes: right up to the chassis’ designed maximum gross vehicle mass. For example, a Renault Kerax (pictured) can be legally operated at gross weights of up to 42 tonnes as a volumetric mixer, but the same chassis could only operate as a tipper or barrel mixer on UK roads at weights of up to 32 tonnes.

Other vehicles which may fall within the scope of Goodwill’s projected change include the so-called ‘mill and mix’ trucks which visit farms where they mill farmer-supplied grain and add molasses and other products carried on the vehicle to create animal feed on-site.