Pickup trucks in the UK are used extensively in the construction industry for moving goods about, but it doesn’t stop there. You can use a pickup for moving almost anything about at any time. If you need pickup truck hire in Yorkshire and the surrounding counties, at T G Commercials Self Drive we have many 3.5-ton pickups / tippers which can unload the items you are carrying in a pile. Alternatively, we have others which can lay the goods in a straight line as you tip them.

There are a few things to consider when using a pickup / tipper, a lot of which is to do with the weight that they can carry. The first thing to note is the kerb weight (unladen weight) of the truck, which is the weight without any people in the cab and no goods in the back, but with a full tank of fuel.

Gross Vehicle Weight

Then you need to consider the Gross Vehicle Weight which is the weight with people in the cab and the goods in the back. It is also known as the Maximum Permissible Weight. If you go over this limit, you can be stopped and fined by police – and those fines can run into a considerable amount of money. According to the DVSA, eight out of every ten commercial vehicles are stopped because they are overweight! It applies to buses and coaches as well.

You need to be careful about this because you may not be aware of the weight of the people in the cab for example. You also have to take into consideration the payload, which is simply the weight of the goods in the back that you are carrying. So, in order to keep things as simple as possible, if the kerb weight is, say 1 ton and the GVW is 1.5 tons, then you cannot carry more than 0.5 tons in the back.

Obviously, it is all to do with safety on the road, which is fair enough. Fortunately, at T G Commercials Self Drive, when you need pickup truck hire we can discuss your options with you. If you are moving a lot of heavy goods, it may simply be that you need a bigger pickup or larger truck to do so.

It’s no problem, because we have just about every type of vehicle that you could ever need. All are serviced on time and are ready when you need one.