The Automotive Blog

The Road Haulage Association says in the past few weeks hauliers have had an extra £1,000 a truck slapped on to their annual fuel bill. 

“On 22 April 2009, the Chancellor told us he expected energy prices to come down,” said Kate Gibbs, head of communications for the RHA.  “The opposite happened.”  She says this adds more weight to the RHA’s case to drop the planned two pence a litre duty hike in September.  If it goes ahead, Gibbs says the third rise in nine months will equate to fuel tax rise of 12%. 

The RHA says this will hurt already hard-pressed hauliers.  “The health of the UK road freight industry is key to the recovery of UK plc.  The healthier the industry, the more rapidly the economy will recover.  Surely the Chancellor realises that?”

With fuel prices increasing all the time hauliers should review the aide automotive TP Anti Syph to stop fuel theft.

With tyres for an off road vehicle costing anything from £40k, tyre pressure monitoring is essential to avoid unnecessary blowouts. By investing as little as £400 (prices start from) in a PressurePro™ device, this could save a quarry thousands of pounds in replacement tyres.

PressurePro as used on quarry vehicles

Tyre Pressure monitoring is an important procedure for any quarry business. With

Advantage PressurePro™ are a leading provider and pioneer of Tyre Pressure Monitoring systems. PressurePro, which continually reads tyre pressures and reports readings via Radio Frequency (RF) Signals to a monitor in the cab, allows users to view current pressures whether the vehicle is parked or moving. Audible and visual alerts warn drivers to low or high tyre pressures, allowing drivers to report to a manager before tyres cause health & safety issues or plant incidents. Further to adding greater safety and convenience to vehicles, other significant benefits from maintaining the correct pressure include increased fuel efficiency, extended tyre life, decreased maintenance, diminished downtime and reduced emissions.

PressurePro™ has been a huge success in the USA and is now being used by more quarries around the world

We’ve been using the PressurePro wireless Tyre Pressure Monitoring System for several months at our Osborne gold-copper mine Queensland, as well as one of our mines in Western Australia. The product has been found to be accurate, tough and easy to install, no special tools needed. Unlike manual systems, it operates 24/7, sitting or while the vehicle is moving. Drivers have been alerted to under-inflated tyres several times, thereby saving both tyres and downtime.

Dave Pafflin, Mobile Plant Maintenance Superintendent of Barrick Osborne gold-copper mine, Australia

PressurePro has been a huge success in many international markets thanks to the significant additions of safety and savings that it provides. aide automotive ltd are pleased to be established as the sole supplier for PressurePro™ in the UK.

aide automotive ltd  are the UK distributors for PressurePro.

The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 makes it easy for the courts to prosecute companies who cannot demonstrate they have implemented and communicated health and safety products.

aide automotive has a number of products that can help companies demonstrate all that they can. In particular a Duty of Care policy needs to be in place.

Fleet maintenance is crucial in running a safe, efficient and cost effective transport operation. The penalties for your failure to do so, or your failure to the adherence of your Operator License requirements are severe, and can result in the closure of your business.

Drivers and Operators must have a system in place to be able to report promptly any defects or symptoms of defects that could adversely affect the safe operation of their vehicles.

Safety inspections must include those items covered by the appropriate Department for Transport annual test. They should be pre-planned preferably using a time based programme and must be regularly monitored particularly in the early stages. There must be a system to ensure that unroadworthy vehicles are removed from service. Any remedial work carried out arising from safety inspections must be the subject of a written record.

The above text is extracted from the Transports Friend Website.

aide automotive’s products help operators complete vehicle inspections, BrakeCheck is highly accepted by VOSA for inspection sheet brake testing, other products such as TrailerCheck can test and prep a trailer for inspections or MOT.

Brake Light Check is a low cost easy to install device to check brake lights are operational.

A recent survey of 10,000 at-work drivers by Matrix Global Services  highlights that organisations not implementing Duty of Care leave themselves open to  risk of prosecution, unlimited fines or even imprisonment,

The survey found that 40% of at-work drivers have never seen their company’s driver handbook.

This survey is a wake-up call to employers to think about how they manage work related road risk. Many employers think that if the vehicle is owned by their employee this lets them off the hook, but this is wishful thinking.

stated Michael Appleby, a health and safety specialist lawyer at Housemans in London.

Duty of Care not only applies to company car drivers but also to “grey fleet” vehicles which are owned by individuals but used for company business. In this survey 44.9% were driving these called ‘grey fleet’ cars, nearly half of the work force

 The duty of care issue is not a new one, indeed it has been high on fleet agendas for a number of years now, however, typically we have seen that companies face more of an administration burden in maintaining records and control over this group of drivers.

Chairman of ACFO Julie Jenner.

This administration burden is easy to alleviate with RouteSafe, a duty of care product supplied by aide automotive. This Duty Of Care kit system for a companies vehicle fleet, helps directors and managers take action to support corporate manslaughter laws

The results of our survey show that a huge number of UK businesses and organisations are not adequately dealing with this important aspect of workplace health and safety. This is despite the fact that their failure to do so could ultimately, cost them their businesses and even their personal freedom.

Scott Ingham, managing director of Matrix.

The survey results were compiled using 10,000 driver profiles on Driving Risk Manager over the period December 2008 to May 2009.

Follow this link for more products from aideautomotive

In May 2009 a Skelmersdale man was jailed for 11 months  for the theft of hundreds of litres of fuel from HGV’s at a Burscough haulage firm

Fortunately for the haulage firm  an employee had seen Mark Livesley and an accomplice running away from the scene of the crime and alerted his boss. Later that day police found barrels in a field which contained over 300 litres of fuel , syphoned from their lorries.

Livesley, 35, admitted theft of diesel valued at £930 from Grahams Haulage between June 16 and 17 last year.

As the problem of fuel theft increases, aide automotive has a number of porducts that ease the worry of concerned haulage firms.  There are a range of anti-syphoning devices such as TP Anti Syph and Van Syph visit our website for more details at aide automotive. Also another product, Diesel Key acts as an anti-theft device and anti syphoning device.

A spate of fuel thefts from cars and lorries has hit North Staffordshire over the past few days.

A quarry in Hurst Road, Biddulph where Two trucks and a Ford Transit van were targeted, Overnight on Saturday between 50 and 60 litres of diesel was stolen from an artic unit parked in Higherland, Newcastle.

The following night the fuel tank of a Fiat Punto in Newcastle had its fuel removed.

Dave Twist, North Staffordshire crime reduction manager, said: “We are warning motorists to be on their guard if they are offered cheap fuel for sale.
“People are obviously buying illegal fuel from the thieves and we are urging anyone offered the fuel to contact us.”
All offences of “bilking” – where offenders drive off from garage forecourts without paying for fuel – and other fuel thefts are investigated.

Mr Twist continued: “We are also concerned that such fuel may damage people’s cars due to the risk of fuel contamination. Fixing such problems could cost thousands.

Fuel theft is not stopping and van and cars users must look to protect fuel, aide automotive offer a couple of products to help protect against fuel theft. Diesel Key protects agaisnt siphoning and mis fuelling from cars and vans, where the Van Syph device stops fuel siphoning from vans.

Matthew Burke stated ” We are selling increasing calls from customers who have been hit by fuel theft, for a little cost of around 40 pounds you can protect your fuel from theives.

TyreSafe, the organisation for driving awareness of the dangers of driving on worn or defective tyres has introduced a new section to it’s website.  Recognising the importance of tyre pressure monitoring to truck companies they have dedicated a whole section to Truck Tyre Safety.

TyreSafe state that in 2007, defective or under-inflated tyres were a contributory factor in the death of 43 motorists in the UK, and played a part in a further 984 accidents. As for Trucks VOSA documented an MoT failure rate of 36.5 percent in 2007/8, with ‘condition of tyres’ ranking as the second most common failure defects . The VOSA statistics reveal that the percentage of failure defects attributed to tyres rose from 4.9 percent in 2006/7 to 5.6 percent in 2007/8 among HGV motor vehicles.

All of this stresses the importance of Tyre Pressure Monitoring through devices such as PressurePro which takes the guesswork out of determining the correct tyre pressure of a vehicle.  Monitoring Tyre Pressure is particularly important for all commercial vehicle operators.

Click here for aide automotive’s full product range

aide automotive’s Brake Light Check has featured in the Coach & Bus publication recently.

The BLC is an ideal easy way of checking brake lights are operational, simple to install and cost effective at £34.95 + VAT the BLC is ideal for any vehicle.

Read more by clicking here.

By purchasing BrakeCheck organisations will save money on brake testing, see a recent comment from  MSK Waste Management and Recycling

Delivery of BrakeCheck and printer were received the next day following our order.

We have a fleet of 30 HGV vehicles all of which were submitted for voluntary brake checks prior to annual mot at a cost of £61.00 + VAT per vehicle, totalling £1830.00 per annum

We aquired the BrakeCheck and printer from yourselfs for £505.00 + VAT giving MSK a average Annual saving for the 1st year of £1300.00.

Follow this link for more information on BrakeCheck or visit aideautomotive for our full product range