Australian Design Rules Explained

Another looong story so please hang in there,

ADR's [Australian Design Rules] for anything that moves on our Australian roads is determined, organised, policed and administered by and from Canberra, at the Department of Transport and Regional Services [commonly called DoTaRs or worse if your not happy with them] Vehicle Safety Standards Division in particular [commonly called VSS].

Now, if you wish to build, import, design, alter or improve any type of vehicle to travel on our roads be it trucks, buses, cars, motorcycles, trailers, caravans or anything that, looks like, smells like, or acts like one, even if it is a specialised one, like say, fire engines or airport luggage loaders for aircraft, anything, MUST have a compliance plate.

The fact that a'' vehicle'' [one of the above] has a compliance plate indicates that it complies with all rules and regulations as required by or demanded from VSS with reference to, weights, loads, number of people, engines, brakes, axles, couplings, fuel, fire suppression arrangements, all safety arrangements and items, on and on, with regards to everything in and on the vehicle, and that it has passed all dynamic tests as required by or demanded from VSS to their satisfaction, as regards braking, rollover, crash, on and on.

Most of the above would just be paperwork. If you decided to become a manufacturer of caravans you would apply to the VSS, apart from all the other statutory and legal requirements, you would be required to submit plans, paperwork, design criteria, etc to build the caravan the VSS would make you the licensee of the compliance plate, plus two others, one as the signatory, usually someone else in the company, and the third one, as an agent, usually someone you nominate outside the company say an engineer in an independent company who can issue independent reports and make submissions.

The licensee is the one responsible for all aspects of the issuing of the compliance plate.

The signatory actually marks each compliance plate and keeps records of each one and deals with the VSS.

A point about the ADR's

ADR's are the MINIMUM standards required Australia wide. The states through their RTA or Vic Roads can impose additional requirements for the registration of the vehicle, no state can lower the standards of the ADR's, if one state has imposed an additional requirement, the manufacturer would include it on all vehicles, even though the other states did not require it.

Back to the manufacturer of the caravans, once the VSS has approved your design, if you then wished to change that design as submitted you would have to submit a variation to the VSS for approval, to get around doing this continually, in your original submission you would ask for approval to build your van within certain parameters, and give a range of values within which all your caravans would be built, eg the length, between this figure and that figure, tare between this and that weight, any ATM between this and that weight, or any weight up to a certain maximum figure etc, the VSS would check that say the chassis and/or axles and tyres could take the range of loads up to the maximum you requested and approval would be given, but if you wanted to exceed say a certain length, you may have additional requirements to put on extra side lights or reflectors, or if the maximum ATM you requested exceeded the limits of what they had, of say the axle or the braking units of what you were using [say ALKO] then VSS would ask ALKO not you, for additional tests [practical demonstrations if necessary] and figures to satisfy VSS that the axle or units would cope before issuing approval to you.

As you can see you do not have to actually submit your van to VSS most of it is paperwork but it is serious and legal and you can be held liable in a court of law.

The licensee is legally required to make sure all his vans are made within the approved limits as amended of the compliance plate.

The end bit, on the compliance plate, you could put the tare weight standard for that layout with no options shown, and the ATM standard for that layout, without actually weighing the individual van as a standard figure, there would be a tolerance value allowed.

For every single compliance plate issued in Australia all the licensees are required to send to VSS in Canberra a royalty of $2-50.

If you buy a car there is a tare weight includes all oils and water, but no petrol a kerb weight [includes all oils and water plus a full tank of fuel] the maximum number of passengers and the gross weight with no mention of any options you have had put on when you bought the car.

Phew, if you have got this far, does this sort out all queries?

A Final Word on ADR's

Just to finish off on the ADR's et al

I think what it boils down to is, a ' vehicle' that is built to its approved compliance plate is legal when it leaves the factory. Then it becomes the new owners responsibility at law, to make sure by whatever means, that the van does not exceed any of the limits as stated on the compliance plate, and if found to be exceeding those limits may be prosecuted and/or held liable in a court of law.

The policing of this on the road would be done by state police, not by officials from the Department of Transport as it is a private as against a commercial journey.

It would be unlikely that a van would be pulled over and ordered to be weighed on a weighbridge [unless it was grossly overloaded, but an owner who unknowingly or deliberately overloads his/her van may do long term damage to the van, by splaying of the tyres, bending of the chassis, brakes wearing out quicker, or any number of scenarios undetected, until something breaks or an accident occurs, then pleading ignorance is no defence.

(name withheld at writer's request)

We spotted this following good info on Adryan's Board and it illustrates the points raised by the writer above.

Anyone who wonders from time to time, like me, whether they are towing with the handbrake on should take the effort to have their van weighed in the travelling condition. I’m sure you will be surprised at the difference between the registered tare weight and the towed weight.

My 1984 Windsor poptop is registered at 960 kg; what a joke! With normal travelling gear including full gas bottle but no water, plus some extras including pull-out awning and annexe, matting etc, the towed weight comes in at 1260kg. Add the TV, microwave, food, water and clothes, and I guess I’m not far off 1400–1500kg. But there is worse to come. Because of its forward kitchen design, all cupboards and under-bench storage (and water tank) are forward of the axle. Thus a few extra kilos inside soon multiply to a fair increase on the drawbar. After all, there is a limit on how much you can shove under the bed (along with all the money grey nomads are supposed to have).

In my case the weighbridge showed 160kg drawbar weight, being 13% of all-up weight. My Land Rover Disco diesel auto is quite comfortable with the load and the 2-bar equalisers I’ve been using to date, but as the maximum static download on the hitch is stated at 120kg, I decided to upgrade to a 4-bar system to be on the safe side. When I start on the big one next year and have the proverbial kitchen sink on board in both the van and vehicle, I’ll be confident that I’m well within capacity, rather than relying on the wing and a prayer method!

In the USA they seemed to be plagued with similar ADR problems - spotted this on on Pop Up Times Bulletin Board.

I just received a fax from the Viking dealer that I have been talking to. He faxed me the weight information sheets for two Viking models - 2470ST and 2465ST.

What a bummer!!!!

I knew that the weights did not appear too good but I thought they were workable. NOT!!

According to the sheet, this particular unit has a cargo carrying capacity (CCC) of 84 lbs.!! You read right! 84 lbs.!

Now, that doesn't include the battery (25 lbs.?) or the A/C @ 65 lbs. And voila, there are the numbers, the GVWR is exceeded! And forget exceeding the limit, even if you didn't, there's NO ROOM FOR CARGO!!!!

Well, I am shocked and dismayed. The only way to get any cargo at all is to not carry water when travelling, which in some cases would be a sweet convenience. That would save me 6 trips to the water faucet at some parks.

Looks like another trip to the Coleman dealer...I know the Coleman models list the CCC to be about twice that of the Viking.

I know there are some Viking owners here - what are you guys doing? Do you have the weight problems? Someone here has the 2480ST, I know.