Vehicle Inspection, Maintenance and Load Security
What this domain tests
Inspection, maintenance and load security is the domain where the examiner asks you to prove the vehicle is fit and the load is legal before it moves. It rewards a fixed routine and concrete limits.
Daily walk-around
Before the first movement of the day, check tyres (pressure, tread, cuts, bulges, missing wheel nuts), lights and reflectors, mirrors, wipers, fluid and oil leaks, and the load restraints. On an air-braked vehicle, build pressure to the governor cut-out, confirm the low-pressure warning works, then check the system holds pressure with the engine off. A system that leaks down fails and the vehicle does not move.
Technical inspection
Heavy and commercial vehicles go to an MPWT inspection centre on the cycle set for their class - the certificate must be current and carried in the cab. Brakes, steering, emissions, lights, tyres and body structure are the usual failure points.
Load security
- Stay inside the gross vehicle mass and the individual axle limits printed on the registration book.
- Load low and centred; a high centre of gravity turns a normal bend into a rollover.
- Lashings must be rated and matched to the load, with at least one restraint per section; rope and unrated strap are not lashings.
- Loose sand, gravel or aggregate must be covered.
- A load projecting behind must be marked - a flag by day, a light at night - and must never hide your lights, plates or mirrors.
- Know your height before you meet a bridge or a low cable.
Worked example
A three-axle tipper is booked at 25 t gross, 6 t on the front axle and 19 t on the rear bogie. The weighbridge reads 27 t with 7 t on the front. The truck is overloaded and nose-heavy: shed 2 t and move the remainder back before you leave.
Traps
Treating the tarpaulin as optional; using whatever strap is in the toolbox; forgetting that height, not just weight, is a legal limit.