During two days of extensive testing last week the complete range of SDC high volume trailers (longer length) were approved by the VCA as meeting the requirements of the physical turning circle provision. The DFT has made a requirement for LST’s to achieve stringent turning circle requirements under regulation 31A(1) of the Construction and Use regulation 1986 (C&U). In layman terms this means that the tractor and trailer combination must physically manoeuvre within a 12.5 metre circle with a 4 x 2 and 6 x 2 tractor unit.

 

The trailer types that SDC have now had approved for their LST model report which is a mandatory requirement for the Vehicle Special Order (VSO) are

1. 14.65 self steer rated for 44 tonne operation

2. 15.65 self steer rated for 44 tonne operation

3. 15.65 single Tri Dec command steer rated for 44 tonne

4. 15.65 single Muldoon command steer rated for 44 tonnes

5. 15.65 twin Tri Dec command steer rated for 44 tonne operation.

 

SDC managing director Mark Cuskeran "We are delighted to be the first manufacturer to achieve our LST Model Report which makes our range of trailers road legal. SDC have been working on this project for over 3 years and we have been testing prototypes for 18 months. It is only by extensive testing and certain amounts of trial and error were we able to produce these five trailers. It is a credit to our R & D team that we have achieved this approval especially as the DFT has insisted that the "deemed to comply” calculation is not sufficient. We were quite confident that our trailers would pass the physical testing carried out by the VCA as we have currently 70 LST’s in build. The challenge we set our engineers was to design and build 15.65 metre trailers which would be plated to a 44 tonne (roughly 27 tonne payload). We have a number of demonstration trailers available if license holders would like to exhibit to their customers (details are on our website). The next models we will have approved are LST’s with full ENXL certification and step frame trailers”.