Pulled by the police today

That's only from my experience of them of course.

I'm sure there are some very nice police officers around..

 

Do what you can to stay within the law bud. Not sure he can force you to flatbed your bus, but I’d certainly change the tyre that he’s moaning about before you move it. Plus I’d go and have a word with the people who’s car park you’re in and let them know why you’re in there because you don’t want a parking excess charge to boot. If you leave it till later and then sort the ticket, it’ll be more hassle you don’t need.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,, good luck and stay cool.

 

Your banged to rights with the bald tyre, simply you should not have been driving on it.
But he was wrong with the age there is no defined age limit but the industry recomendations vary, but 10 years is the recommended maximum unless they are cracking like yours which shows they are past there best age.

 

I agree with the comments about the age of the tyres.
There is no age limit referenced in MOT or Construction and use regs, but TUV and manufacturers recommendations are to change every 6 years. "So what", legally speaking.
Deserves a complaint, seems like the guy was deliberately being really quite unprofessional, verging on a bit of an abuse of power.

 

I mean the thing is I completely agree with safety checks and I had already booked on Friday to have the fronts done, but did not notice how bad the backs were.

The guy went on to tell me these vans have no airbags, no side impact bars and a solid metal steering wheel....A coffin on wheels.

He did a thorough inspection and climbed under the van. Was not impressed I had not fitted my door cards.

There were 2 officers. One of them thought tyres should be changed every 3 years, but the other wrongly corrected him to 6 years.

Anyway I have the van back home now and all 4 tyres changed on my drive tommorow.

 

Should have told them the VW classic of 'Jesus is my airbag'.

 

Should have asked them what they thought of motorbikes, then stood well back

 

There is no limit on tyre age in the MOT as far as I know.

 

Correct I asked my MOT tester earlier.

 

Police are bit busy at the moment dealing with the issues of the day, stopping camper vans, dealing with the epidemic levels of anti Semitism, non existent spy killings and other such,
to bother dealing with petty crime like the 50 murders so far in London this year. *******es me right off.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-43645636

 

...then offered him some weed...

 

Donuts for the win.

 

What colour is the sky where you live?

 

Well I did joke and say at least I would die quickly, but he got quite cross at me saying he was annoyed by my blasé attitude to safety. Went on a rant about how a young child could run in front of the car and blah blah blah.
I was going to say to him I was more worried about my bus catching fire than safety features when driving, but didn't want him to check out my freshly burnt paintwork in the engine bay!

The thing is I completely understand their concerns, but like another has said when I work on my van at home the police officers have come over several times and had nice chats and wished me well on my projects.

I would have more sympathy, but I reported this crime a few months back ago and I got a letter saying thank you, but cannot prosecute
https://www.facebook.com/patrick.nguyen.902/videos/10155290716617659/

 

Interesting to note what Rospa says about campervans:

" Vehicles which are stored for significant periods (motorhomes, caravans, ice cream vans, classic cars, etc) are more likely to need to replace their tyres at a younger age even though the tread may well have hardly been touched. This is because tyres have agents in their compound which are squeezed through the rubber when in use to inhibit the ageing process; if unused for some time, these agents do not work, thus increasing the speed of the ageing process. Tyres fitted as spare wheels or used on caravans and trailers may age prematurely."

I think that as more campers become mot exempt, the more the police will be stopping them in the hope of getting brownie points, thinking that folks won't bother to maintain them to a roadworthy standard.

 

He's actually wrong (not that that surprises us). If you've got a later Bay, you've got the "Y" chassis members and deformation panel at the front, and do have rather crude intrusion bars in the doors. The steering column bracket is designed to fold forwards in a crash, as you're facing the wheel sideways. As I recall, after Ralph Nader gave Splitties a good pasting in his book, VW redid the vans so they passed the same 1970s crash tests as passenger cars.

Not that you'd really want to test it all ...

 

Let's face it, modern cars are made of plastic or metal the thickness of a coke can. But again, I wouldn't want to test it.

 

I thought this too, but did not want to argue. In fact I had my 11 year old daughter with me and was trying to get rid of her in Sainsbury's as felt it was not right for her to see me getting a bollocking from the police, but she was too interested.
Although she did make me smile when she said that "No! Campervans are the best" in response to the officers comments regarding campers. She said she could not wait to get back to school to tell all her friends. The officer did laugh and sarcastically say to me "My son is 3 months old, I can see I have fun times ahead"