Indicate Intent – Road Refresher Series

In your car, there is a beautiful little contraption. Usually found on the right or left side of your steering wheel, it humbly rests within flicking distance of your finger. It’s a wonderful thing, promising safety and understanding from other drivers and pedestrians on the road. No, not the headlights, nor the windscreen wiper.

The indicator.

Indicators are an overlooked but essential part of driving. They’re one of the most important pieces of hardware that your driving test instructor will ask you to point out. The indicator allows you to signal your intent to other drivers and people on the road. It lets them know that you’re about to slow down, where you’re turning, or if you plan to change lanes. Everyone can react and behave accordingly. It’s idyllic.

Changing lanes without indicating is a disastrous behaviour that is, sadly, common on the road. It has dire consequences, with accidents, heavy fines, and complicated insurance claims. It may count as a non-criminal traffic violation, but it can result in demerit points, licence suspension, and severe injury. This is a road rule in place not just for practicality, but also for safety. If you get into a traffic accident because you or another car refused to indicate, the best-case scenario is a whole lot of wasted time and a trip to the car doctor. Worst case is someone gets hurt or killed.

There are several important and common places where indicating is vital. They are:

1.      When changing lanes in traffic

You must give way to the lane you are merging into. Indicate long enough that the cars in your destination lane have time to react accordingly, and move over calmly. If you have to change multiple lanes you still have to keep your indicator on and give way to the other lane.

2.      When merging

If your lane is coming to an end, you have to merge into the next. Road signs are posted up to warn drivers of an ending lane, giving you plenty of time to prepare. Flip your indicator, give way, and move into your new lane.

3.      On a roundabout

Roundabouts are where indicators are most often ignored, especially in ones with a single lane. The rules for indicating on roundabouts are, when approaching the roundabout, use your indicator immediately if you are taking the first or third exit. It’s not necessary to turn your indicator on early if you’re taking the second exit straight through. However, you should use it when exiting the roundabout! This goes for all exits, no matter which one.

4.      Driveways, turning corners, and parking

Indicating when you’re approaching a driveway, turn, or carpark is key, as it tells the people behind you that you’re about to slow down. No one wants to arrive at their destination only to be rear-ended because they didn’t give the people behind them enough warning. Indicating in these situations removes a lot of mystery about your movements – it even allows you to call dibs on a parking spot! The less mysterious you are on the road, the safer everyone is.

Don’t forget, the average car weight in Australia is 2 tonnes. You are behind the wheel of something that can easily become a destructive weapon, to people and infrastructure alike. Indicating where you are going is not just a courtesy, it’s a basic necessity.

Caravan Weighing Toowoomba

Weigh The Risks

You are about to go on an adventure up and down the coast, into the bush, or the red heart, it doesn’t matter where. It will be you behind the wheel, and the caravan behind you. But something’s wrong. Do you know how much your caravan weighs?

Caravan weights (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-12/queensland-caravan-owners-weight-regulations-towing-skills/102932800) can dictate how smooth your trip is going to be, and many people are unaware of the consequences, or even the fact that you should be weighing at all.

First and most notable is that towing over the legal weight is against the law. Fines apply to people found towing over capacity, and if an accident occurs then caravan-towers found over the limit aren’t covered by their insurance.

There’s also general road safety. If your tow vehicle is hauling along something that exceeds the capacity of either it or its tow ball, you can seriously damage the running gear. The motor can give out, your tow bar can break, your transmission can die, and you can completely lose control of your vehicle. Needless to say, these incidents cause messy situations. And there are many other ways things can go wrong for caravan-towers on the road.

The process of weighing a caravan should be easy, but many holiday-goers don’t factor in the weight of their belongings when checking if their car and tow ball can tow an empty caravan. Caravan weights fluctuate depending on the berth, length, width, and height, but they should all have their total weight when carrying no additional belongings on the VIN plate or elsewhere in the caravan body. This weight is called the TARE weight, the solo weight of the caravan - www.xtendoutdoors.com.au/blogs/general/understanding-the-size-and-weight-of-your-caravan.

However, the weighing doesn’t end there. The weight of the caravan once loaded is called the Gross Trailer Mass or Aggregate Trailer Mass (GTM/ATM), and doesn’t include the weight of the car. This GTM and the overall weight of your car (the Gross Vehicle Mass) will help determine the ultimate weight of your caravan and car, passengers and belongings included. This is then the combined weight of the full caravan AND full towing vehicle. This is called the Gross Combination Mass (GCM), and this weight is what you do NOT want to go over.

If you’re keen to do the math yourself, Paramount has a Caravan Weight Breakdown article that will give you all the formulas - www.paramountcaravans.com.au/caravan-weight-breakdown/.

However, there are places where eager caravaners can get their set-up weighed. Purple Truck itself is registered with Queensland Transport and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulators (NHVR) to weigh your caravans, so we can do it for you!

Tow The Line

If you are going on a trip, what do you bring? This is the big question. Some people are chronic over-packers, while some are happy to exist with the bare minimum of possessions. It’s rarely worth wondering about… except when it comes to packing your caravan.

We have discussed the importance of weighing your caravan and how many people underestimate this critical step. Now, we will advise how to keep that weight in mind while packing your travel home for that holiday getaway.

To find a caravan’s payload – how much you can load into it – you can simply minus the caravan’s TARE weight from the Aggregate Trailer Mass (ATM). Remember, the TARE weight is the weight of an empty, unhitched caravan, and the ATM should be set by most caravan manufacturers at the time of their manufacturing. It will be available for you to find. If not, you have much bigger problems than how many pairs of pants you can pack.

Another thing to beware of is the potential pitfalls of your payload. Your TARE weight will change from the manufacturer’s estimate if you have made any alterations to the vehicle after purchase. So if you have installed spare tyres, additional water tanks, a new cooking stove, fridge, furniture, or storage facility, your TARE weight needs re-checking. If you don’t do that, your ATM will be different and you will end up exceeding your payload and paying the price for doing so. Read about fines here www.gorv.com.au/3381-2/.

The caravanning community is wide and knowledgeable and there are plenty of places you can get advice on what to pack, how to pack, and why. RACQ even has a list of loading tips here www.racq.com.au/articles/rvs/2021/2/carry-that-load. that many caravaners corroborate and borrow from. A bit of research will go a long way, but us at Purple Truck can give you a little head start on ensuring your safety on the road.

Packing your Caravan:

• Put as much luggage and necessities as you can in your car instead of in the caravan. This is better for stability as well as weight distribution.

• Keep your heavier belongings close to or on the ground, but firmly secured.

• Memorise the loading pattern that works best for you and copy it every time.

• Ensure that everyone going with you only has things they NEED! Take steps to reduce even the smallest bit of extra weight, e.g. using a Kindle or eReader instead of packing multiple books.

• There’s no need to pack extra water unless your trip is taking you somewhere without it.

• Put as little as possible in the front of the van, as it affects the nose weight.

• Check how much your food, clothes, and toiletries weigh before putting them into the caravan. You can use bathroom scales for this!

• Since many caravans carry greater weight on one side (fridges, seats, stove, etc), try and balance it out on the other side with portable equipment. If you can, try and align these with the axels so they’re more supported.

• If you’re really into reducing weight, modifications to your caravan are doable. Some people have changed out their bathroom doors for lighter-weight ones, and others have installed aluminium sinks in favour of the ceramic ones. It comes down to your priorities and skills.

• At the end, WEIGH!

After you’ve packed and unpacked and repacked your caravan over the years, you will have your method down to a science. Never neglect the need to weigh your vehicles, and you will never have a problem with it.