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What's the likely penalty for travelling with more passengers than your vehicle has seats?
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Probably 3 points & £30.
Should be brain transplant.
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Aren't there two questions there ?:
1) more passengers than seats
2) unsecured but in a seat
The Volvo additional seats in the boot weren't always fitted with belts.
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A fine and three points is the short answer.
The not much longer answer is at page 136 of this document:
www.peterjepson.com/law/Magistrates%20Court%20Sentencing%20Guidelines.pdf
See: "Number of passengers or way carried involving danger of injury (Road Traffic Act 1988, s.40A)"
The even longer answer will be in the Act, but I've not linked to that because I doubt many of us would understand it. :)
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The Volvo additional seats in the boot weren't always fitted with belts.
Really? Maybe if you go back to the 145, but I travelled in those seats in 245s in the mid-70s - when i was a better size for such things than I am now - and there were certainly seat belts by then. I was impressed - most cars then couldn't manage four belts, so seven was quite something.
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Consider the Kenyan 'Matatu': a Peugeot 404 pickup with a plywood box body over the truckbed, carrying eight to fourteen people jammed in fore-and-aft bench seats facing one another and with luggage, chickens, children and so on piled at their feet.
The cheapest form of long-distance transport, matatus were good from the angle of the company, poor Africans, intelligent, jolly and courteous. The drivers were good too, damn good, with the sure and delicate touch needed to conduct such an overload at 70 or even 80 miles an hour on fairly good but far from perfect dirt roads. You could tell by the slow roll to and fro that the thing was well overloaded. All the press-on was made necessary by the size of the continent and the distances between centres.
But I couldn't help wondering sometimes, in the couple of longish journeys I did in them, what it would be like if something really, really went wrong at that speed on those roads far from the nearest proper a&e. I'm no wimp about these things and I like motor vehicles to get a proper move on, more so indeed than most. But I couldn't help thinking those thoughts once or twice.
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>Consider the Kenyan 'Matatu': a Peugeot 404 pickup with a plywood box body over the truckbed,..
.
>But I couldn't help wondering sometimes,..what it would be like if something really, really went wrong..
tinyurl.com/3g383k6
tinyurl.com/427dqmh
tinyurl.com/3romzjq
In SA, a pickup is a 'bakkie'.
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Well exactly Kevin. It's the thought of two hundred yards of debris, bleeding humans, chickens, luggage, one's typewriter, oneself for heaven's sake, bits of plywood and plexiglass, strewn down some sweltering dusty ditch or runoff that makes the blood run cold.
Didn't seem to happen all that often in East Africa in my (brief) day there in 1980. But that could be to do with news management, or perhaps the low traffic volumes on those dirt roads. The drivers were quite good at missing the stuff coming the other way at a closing speed of 150mph, swaying from side to side... reminded me of the French A-road drivers in the Mistral in southern France in 1960 or so.
Perhaps SA suffers from too many good surfaced roads, or too much traffic. Anyway those bakkie crashes are just what I feared (just a couple of times though... I liked my matatu experiences overall).
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I was born in 1959. Until I was 7/8 visits from home in Leeds to paternal grandmother in Dorset were undertaken with my sister and I sleeping on a mattress in the boot of Dad's Victor estate. Common up to seventies to see kids using the boot of an estate car as a playpen.
Makes by blood run cold now but it seemed normal at the time.
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>> Makes by blood run cold now but it seemed normal at the time.
>>
It WAS normal!
But most people survived.. the difference is that there's more vehicles, higher speeds, and less thought used in driving - many people just look at the car in front, not further ahead where they should be looking.
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I remember travelling to the beach with neighbours kids and dog on the way to the beach in the boot of their Volvo estate. Nobody thought it unsafe (it was) but roads were safer in relative terms. I also remember being highly allergic to the dog! Didn't stop us going again and again though.
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In my 1980s gap year I travelled many times in the bakkies and minibus taxis of southern Africa. If you've ever wondered how many people can fit in a Toyota minibus, the answer is always 'two more'.
I don't think my parents had much idea what I was up to. I can't say how I'd feel about my own children doing this.
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1963, seven teenagers (mixed) in a friend's mother's Triumph Herald from the Warren at Abersoch to the Glyn y Widr (May not be spelt correctly) where we all got as drunk as 17 year olds can.
Didn't have seat belts at all!
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Early 1980s. Myself and passenger in my MG Midget. Static seatbelts that were basically useless due to rusted fxing points. Oh, and 2 additional passengers perched precariously behind the seats, heads well above the windscreen level, enjoying the wind in the hair experience.
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>>seven teenagers (mixed) in a friend's mother's Triumph Herald << ;-)
surprising what you could fit in them as teenagers! - we used to look like the keystone cops coming into town! - but nobody ever stopped you or seemed to mind!
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This makes me suspicious.
There is only one reason for carrying passengers in the boot.........
Admit it ,you are in the Mafia aren't you Mapmaker?
....... generally the concrete overcoat to help them sleep with the fishes keeps them from moving around.
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You are right, Heli. 3 points is the least of my worries....
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I got a whole full minibus full of shoe factory (that shows how long ago) workers in the seats and flat estate rear of my 245 Volvo, heavy drifting snow forced their minibus to turn round, it was bad enough for the old Volvo.
However the weight of all those bodies concentrated over the back wheels saw us all safely ploughing over the hills and back into civilisation...not a chance of getting nicked, no police anywhere to be seen.
You just can't beat RWD..;)
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In the mid-80s I used to go to the local church's youth club on a Saturday evening. All the kids were transported about to activities in a couple of the parents' cars, usually with one or two in the boot if it was an estate. 4 or even 5 of us were regularly shoehorned into the back seat of Chevettes, Cavaliers and Datsun Cherrys.
No elf'n'safety forms to sign in those days, no seatbelts fitted in the back either. *Shudders*
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Thu 22 Sep 11 at 15:27
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I'll admit to having slightly overloaded my car in my student days. mid-80s Escort hatch managed 2 in the front, 4 across the back seat and 1 in the boot. Guy in the boot wasn't much impressed with the ride, nor with the loud music coming from the speakers fitted in the parcel shelf above him.
All this took place on private roads, your honour.
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A Honda dealer I did some work for had a TnActy micro van which was used by their football team.
OK, it was five-a-side.
The van had a little tip and tumble bench seat in the load bay, with room behind for the team's kit.
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I was coming back from somewhere I'd delivered a car to. It was the wee small hours in Range Rover and trailer days and I was on wages.
An opportunity to make a bit of cash was too good to miss.
I stopped for a stretch and a nap...I've an idea it was below Bristol on the M5, maybe Michael Wood services.
Some lads came over, they had a hire Transit minibus and something major had failed. As luck would have it they were heading for Manchester.
They had money and I said I'd take them for £50...they could haggle with the hire firm later.
There were 11 of them plus luggage but we put all my stuff, toolboxes, jerrycans, spare wheel, etc into the Ford to make room in the Rangy.
I think I had 1 in the front, 4 on the back seat and six snuggled up like sardines in the back'
I dropped them all within walking distance of their homes and the van on the forecourt of the hire outfit....no breakdown cover....false economy for a hire firm !
Ted
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Ted, if you had 6 passengers in the boot of a Range Rover I'd say they were secure! Not much change of moving. Safe? Maybe not. But having survived the impact of an HGV to a Fiesta... I don't do big miles in a small car normally. Part of the reason to get a Passat and not a Golf. HGV can cause serious damage to the rear of a car!
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As a police cadets in about 1963, a group of us walked the Pennine Way. There were two instructors and 12 grunts. One instructor followed the course of the walk by road in a Morris J4 Black Maria, meeting up with us at overnight stops with the tents and cooking gear.
One night, at Middleton in Teesdale, our's was the first tent to blow away. I was sharing with one of the instructors, who had the van keys. We ran for the van, he unlocked the back then dived in the front, locking himself in...two seats and a warm engine cowling to spread across.
I got in the back, there was a grille fencing it off from the front and there were wooden slatted seats along either side.
Ok, fine, I was, at least, drying out. During the night I was joined, in stages by 12 other souls.
It was a free for all. If you moved a limb, a bit of someone else would flow into the space left and you couldn't get back. Moreover, there was no headlining and within an hour or so, condensation was dripping off the roof like acid rain.
We retrieved the tents from the trees at first light....at least you don't get that now with sewn-in groundsheets !
Not quite the worst night I've ever spent...that must be the one spent in a phone box by Thirlmere...but that's another tale !
Ted
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Back in the '70s.
I was at a party and driving, so not drinking. Near pub closing time they realised the beer was running out and rang the local pub who promised a barrel. I was despatched to collect it in my Maxi.
A number of folk at the pub wanted a lift back to the party, so dropping the rear seat we had:
Me driving and front seat passenger cradling the parcel shelf.
Two sitting at the back, with their legs hanging out over the rear bumper.
Three down one side and four down the other, facing each other and cradling the barrel.
I'm sure at least one was a member of the local constabulary.
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Ah, memories! Had 7 people in my Fiat 127 24 years ago. Three in the front (one was in the footwell) and 4 in the back. If it had been the hatchback I dare say we would have tried to get another in the boot. Drove back from Bath to a village 12 miles away, but nearly didn't get up Dunkerton Hill - had slowed to about 15 mph as the 900cc engine found us 17 year ols hard work. Irresponsible? Yes, regret it? Yes. Be happy if my daughter did it? not on your nellie! I deserved to get a rollicking, but didn't.
Reminds me of the time in the same car I had to help the shop I worked in (Ratners, that's how long ago) get a load of leaflets to the local newspaper publisher to get them stuck in the paper. Loaded the boot and back seat right up with cartons of heavy leaflets and when it was full could not pul away as the weight in the boot lifted the front wheels just enough off the ground to stop any traction. Very funny. Great car otherwise!
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Unsecured passengers in the boot - Boxsterboy
