New trailer legislation in the People's Republic of Ontario (Canada eh!)

[3930dave]

Having worked in a high hazard industrial environment, I value and appreciate real Safety programs, consistently applied.

I agree with your point polekat, but I suspect you would not want to trade tax burdens with me - Canada is a great place, but not from a (constantly climbing) tax standpoint - we presently pay GST+PST on top of Safety/Environment taxes, and I'm sure the swivel servant actuaries are hard at work dreaming up the third tier.

What I'm trying to do, is better understand these byzantine regulations, before I go off and invest hard earned $ wisely.

The sad thing is there is no common sense at play - we only have light passenger safety inspections here in Ontario when you sell a vehicle. You could literally buy a car in Ontario and drive it for 25 years with the same tires and never have it subject to a scheduled inspection. What is more likely to cause an accident, an occasional issue with a trailer, or somebody driving with 15 year old tires ?

Taxes are driving most of this; simple/obvious existing vehicle regs seem poorly enforced. I've spent the better part of 20 years doing a long commute into Toronto - my personal favourite was brake lights - I'd see many vehicles with ALL brake lights burned out, and only maybe a tiny high mount LED strip working. Try and prove what was going on with that vehicle if you have the misfortune of rear ending it in snow, fog.... conditions (knock wood/my head, never happened to me, but easy to see how it could).

D.

 

[bironacad]

A friend of mine just bought a CUT, 4 hours away from where he lives. In the course of researching trailer to buy, he came across this fairly new Ontario provincial legislation:

"If the gross vehicle weight rating of the truck, when added to the gross vehicle weight rating of the towed trailer exceeds 4500 Kg (9,920 lbs) THEN
both the truck and the trailer require annual safety inspections and the purchase of safety inspections stickers annually. "

Just what we need in Canada, another tax grab......

There may be some exemptions for SUVs, but not pickup trucks.

There also may be an exemption "when transporting personal effects".

What we are trying to figure out is does this only apply to commercial vehicles ?

Anybody out there have any experience with this, or insider knowledge ?

(I may be one day able to afford the truck/trailer I want.... but not the taxes..... )

I was at the MTO in Bancroft Ontario yesterday morning (-28 C -17 F?) and asked about if I needed an inspection tag on my truck to haul my tractor on a trailer. The answer was that if the vehicle is mine and the trailer is mine and the GCVWR is adhered to that I was OK and did not need the vehicle inspection tag but I am not sure they were sure, go figure. If what you are saying is correct my truck a 2500 Dodge quad cab, full box, 5.9 CTD at I think 7500lbs does not give me much room for towing, lol.

 

[3930dave]

Hi Biron...... yeah, a lot of these regs feel pretty loosey goosey.... I suspect that is on purpose. (Hmmm... tax revenues are down this year.... hmmmm... what vehicle demographic haven't we targeted lately....).

The feeling I get is that the intended targets (rightly or wrongly) are commercial operators - if you have commercial lettering on a truck, you are going to be a target. Had a chat with a wise mechanic friend.... for just personal use like you describe you/we will likely not be an enforcement target.

Always a good idea to watch gross combined weight, IMO the guys towing 2x+ their rated trailer weight are often an accident waiting to happen. I ended up buying a one ton van this past Fall, in part, to get the 10k# tow rating.

It's always nice to know the Rules of Engagement, before playing in any game.... these regs do feel "loose", and perhaps even some of the green bears (MTO) don't understand them fully either.

Some of it comes down to luck 'o the draw.... my mechanic buddy cited one example where "personal use" might be wearing thin..... guys that run stock cars in extensive racing series are trailering them a lot during the season...... seeing that load on the road quite a bit, might be enough for a local LEO on a quiet week to decide to take a closer look. All speculation on our part..... nobody seems to really know for sure.

To make matters even more confusing, some overtly commercial guys seem to get a way w/o commercial inspection stickers for quite some time.... my friend related a story about a customer who refused to listen about getting the Comm inspection done - got away with it for a number of years... UNTIL he did get nailed.... I think the fines alone were something like $3k+, not counting the needed mechanical work.

Interestingly, RV's may be exempt.... guessing the govt does not want to interfere with tourist $$$$$$$. For arguments sake, if you threw a slide in camper into your p/u bed, it would be interesting to have that MTO conversation again......

But.... back to common sense.... GCVWR is spec'd for a reason..... heavily loading a truck itself, then adding a heavy trailer..... definitely not my idea of a good time.

Haul safe, enjoy the tractor, stay warm..... Rgds, D.

 

[slowzuki]

We fail annual inspection here for cracked windows, I remember the first time I rented a car in Alberta, the window had 2 huge spidercracks in it, right in front of the driver.

I went back in and complained saying someone must have broken the window over night. Desk lady came out and looked at the car and asked me what I was talking about? Talk about dangerous driving when the sun was low!

 

[bironacad]

We fail annual inspection here for cracked windows, I remember the first time I rented a car in Alberta, the window had 2 huge spidercracks in it, right in front of the driver.

I went back in and complained saying someone must have broken the window over night. Desk lady came out and looked at the car and asked me what I was talking about? Talk about dangerous driving when the sun was low!

You poking at Alberta? Don't you guys in New Bruswick drive on the shoulder to pass, lol?

 

[Luremaker]

You are absolutely right about these regs being pretty loosey goosey. My cousin and I both drive around the province towing boats and car hauler trailers and have asked about these regs and have never received a straight answer. My OPP neighbor down the road said not to worry about them if not commercial. Asked a MTO inspector last summer and he mentioned that while its been legislated no enforcement date has been set. Even the MTO Web site is not clear.

Now I am talking about the "Restricted A" license requirement. Drivers of private passenger vehicles pulling trailers with a gross vehicle weight of more than 4,600 kilograms are required to possess a Class A license or a restricted Class A with a condition "R". The Gross Vehicle Weight is the combination of the vehicle weight and load.

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/dandv/driver/classalic.shtml

 

[3930dave]

Thnx (I think ? ) for the link Luremaker.... trying to get a straight answer does feel like Alice going down the rabbit hole, or something from Kafka a lot of the time.....

I think the positive way to look at this is, since most everyone (LEOs included) seems at least a bit confused, I'll just stick with the personal use story (real deal in my case, at least once I have a heavy enough trailer for my tractor).

I had not heard about the restricted Class A... that's a new one to me...... You do have to wonder about all this legislation...... If it is never, or just weakly and randomly enforced, does it really accomplish anything other than employ lawyers ? <<<<< Honest question, not a knock on legal eagles......

I'll keep that 4600 kg limit in mind..... Thnx ! D.

 

[Mikeeemo]

I don't see what the fuss is about. I have to have registration and inspection on my truck and trailer here. Not that big of a deal.

What drives things like this as much as the money is almost always an accident, usually involving a busload of pregnant nuns or something where someones trailer fell apart and caused it or something like that.

I have lived places without state inspections, and I am here to tell you, they work. I have dodged mufflers, parts of bumpers and all kinds of other junk that fell off cars where we did not have inspections.

Funny, we don't have parts falling from cars & trucks.... Don't have inspections either. Not to say that we don't have some junk running around. Must be the climate...

 

[3930dave]

Hi Mike,

The 2 big factors for vehicle wear around here are 1) winter, and 2) commute distance.

Temperature cycling is hard on most mechanical items, and freeze/thaw cycles tend to raise h*ll with the roads.... we end up with potholes that would give a Baja pre-runner truck a workout !

Living near the greater Toronto area, we have the longest average commutes in Canada, maybe beyond, so vehicles tend to get beaten up bad.

I was in my local garage the other day, talking with the owner. He was working on a Windstar that the front wheel bearings were so shot you could literally move the tires up/down about 1/2". The really sad part is that the only reason the guy brought it in was that the idler for the serpentine belt had seized, and burned the belt off.... he was quite OK with driving the van with basically no CV joints left.



People can/will drive junk anywhere on the planet.... our climate here tends to make good vehicles into junk that much faster......

D.

 

[3930dave]

2 years later.....

A guy leaves my buddy's shop, gets 10 minutes down the road and the local police pull him over and ticket him for not having a commercial sticker on his 7,000# enclosed trailer. (Yellow sticker here).

He uses the trailer for his racing sleds (snowmobiles) ONLY and sleeps in it at the track when on the circuit. This US Cargo trailer is insulated, has bunks, and heat - so he may try the "This is my RV" defense in court. Point being, he definitely does not use it commercially, in any common sense of the word.

I could never sum up the "Safety vs. Taxation" story any better than this:

The reason this guy was pulling away from my buddy's shop was he had limped the trailer back home the previous weekend from a race the other side of Chicago ! Blown bearing, wheel off (dual axle), driven judiciously.

So.... after limping this trailer back something like 600 miles, AND paying to have all new bearings AND 4 new brake assemblies installed AND installing two brand new trailer tires - he ends up getting a ticket from a local LEO - while pulling a trailer that is now in better shape than probably 90%+ of what is rolling along today.

Couldn't have anything to do with the Town here seriously considering handing over the local policing to our provincial police (OPP) now would this ? Naaahhhh, revenue has nothing to do with this "public safety" blitz, Eh !

The MTO regs have changed as of Jan 01/13.... it'll probably take me that balance of the decade to make sense of what changed. OK, so I'm an optimist..... :laughing:

It gets better..... A contractor buddy told me tonight of a friend of his who got ticketed for towing a light duty (homeowner type, buy it at Home Depot) small trailer with his F350 that has a commercial sticker (our Yellow tag). The ticket was for not having a yellow sticker on this light duty (Snow Bear) type trailer !

So.... let me try and get this straight........

Snow Bear tinfoil trailer + (F350 with valid commercial sticker) = Mega $$$$ Fines

OR

Snow Bear tinfoil trailer + Smart Car = Good to Go !

I really need to get out of this province, before this starts making sense to me ! :drool:

Rgds, D.