I am with you Paully, my mantra is you are perfectly legal....until you get caught.

Reminds me of the time in England when I was with a group of bike riders when mine failed to proceed. We are on the motorway and I am being towed by another bike. We are going past Hendon which is the location of police college and up the rear come highway patrol. No guessing, could actually see them flicking through the rule book looking for the part that says no motorcycle towing on motorway. Anyways, gets stopped and discussion ends with an instruction along the lines of leave motorway and get off our patch.

Mrsmackpaul and others, several of us are simply saying what the rules are in our State. We did not write them and do not necessarily agree with them. Do not shoot the messenger. Many times I have knowingly broken the law and got away with it. The odd time I have been caught, I think, oh well think of all the times I did not get caught.
The problem with letting the authorities prove that something does not meet the rules is that they have to take you to Court to do it. The Court will find some way to penalise you. My mantra is to stay out of Court at all costs, so I try to make everything LOOK right. If that makes me "a belt and braces man" so be it. At the age of 77, I do not want to give them any excuse to take my driver's licence away.
Some years ago, I was with my Father-in-law when he coupled his 6x4 trailer to his car. He had a vertical pipe he used as a landing leg. He lifted the pipe clear of the road and tightened a clamp by hand to hold it. I told him it was not legal because if the clamp came loose, the pipe would hit the road. He said "I have always done it this way" I told him if a cop sees you he will book you for it. His reply was "but I have always done it this way."

Here in WA the chains must be attached to the main tow bar, not the removable tow hitch yet they put shackle lugs on the hitchs and most people just shackle to that.

Morris I'm not having a go at anyone, I just dont think a lot of this stuff is law that people are suggesting is law

I could be wrong but I doubt it, all to often people these days start quoting ideas that they think are law as a actual law, not saying that is the case here

Anyway thats enough dribble from me

Carry on gents

Paul

On ya Paul. Totally agree. I am no expert and therefore will not get into the laws regarding towing etc. If you are intending to tow anything the onus is
on the driver to be aware of the laws , regardless of which state. We could all ramble on about how we interpret the laws. At the end of the day a fair
amount of these points disgust, could be covered by using a bit of common sense. Think of it this way. Besides getting "JUST" a fined for do 125 kmh
towing a trailer, how is that bloke going to feel if things go wrong and people die, because of his casual attitude. ???

A lot of this "here in Western New Tasmania you must do xxxx" is just conjecture. All states operate on the unified Australian Design Rules when it comes to physical engineering of vehicles and equipment. This is very easy to access on line and covers just about any conceivable facet of vehicle construction and safety requirements. On every State website they mention in lieu of any local law to the contrary the default authority is the Australian Design Rules.

This does not stop a vehicle being put off the road for a patently dangerous (nothing to do with any written law) operation, construction, modification or load. You can not write a law for every breathe a human takes.

The variations occur in inspection requirements, licensing requirements, taxing and registration requirements - all merely administrative

Lang

No offense taken Paul. I have been refused rego on the caravan once because I used an unrated D shackle to hold the loose end of the very long safety chain. Unscrewed it using a shifting spanner because I did it up with one and there was no weight on that section of chain but that is what happened. All safety chain shackles for towing and for loading trucks must be load rated here in NSW and the same for your load chains, they too must be rated to be used on road. Ropes are definitely outlawed so chains and ratchet straps are the go and again must be rated to the load being carried.
The back story to the towing mirrors if required started a long time back but then there was a bad accident when a caravan driver changed lanes onto a truck over taking the van. The dual lanes were comming to an end and the van just pulled out in front of the truck because he simply did not look before changing lanes. Then it was discovered that he never had any mirrors on his tow vehicle which was most likely he simply changed lanes. It is an ongoing topic on the Caravan Forum and some disbelieve until they are booked for it then whinge like no tomorrow because they had towed a caravan for 'x' amount of years with no trouble. Well maybe he had no trouble but everyone he cut off did have a problem.
As stated in this time where no one takes responsibility for their own actions and want to blame it some one else no wonder the Governments put these new rules into play. ADR rules are a National thing but then when you travel into various States few things are the same when it come to road rules, load ratings on trucks can be legal in one State, cross the border and get booked is just one of those useless rules introduced at State level. It is a crazy world we live in at times and if they tell me to do what I do, its simple I do it as I have no reason to make a donation to the Government Funds.

cobbadog wrote:

Ropes are definitely outlawed

No They're Not....

www.ntc.gov.au/sites/default/files/asset...ht-vehicles-2018.pdf

www.ntc.gov.au/sites/default/files/asset...raint-Guide-2018.pdf

The other interesting thing about load restraint is that recently a case (excavator bucket was jammed against headboard in a tipper body) was taken ultimately to supreme court and authorities lost. The transport operator still had to wear the enormous legal costs but the regulations no longer include compliance with the load restraint guide.
Unlike Acts of parliament regulations can be changed at the whim of a minister.