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On my motorcycle trip to Switzerland I spotted lots of lorrys displaying TIR signs. What does it mean? I remember them being quite common in the UK but don`t see them anymore.
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Borrowed from HM Customs and Revenue website:
Although 65 countries have signed the TIR Convention currently it can only be used in 55 of them. Goods that are moved under TIR can pass through these countries with Customs duties and other taxes suspended without the need for unloading / reloading at international frontiers. The EC is deemed to be 'one country' for the use of TIR
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Spot on Dulwich. If I can just add, the fact that the EU now counts as a single market is the reason we get far fewer TIR labels than we used to. Its only vehicles travelling beyond the EU borders that now need TIR.
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Stands for something like Transports Internationales Routiers IIRC. My father's Merc outfit carried the plates back in the mid-1960s when they were a bit of a status symbol for lorry drivers in the UK. They had lorries then, rather than trucks...
Also, IIRC, the trailers carried customs seals and had to be opened in the presence of a customs officer or police officer in the event of any problem like a failed fridge unit. Not easy in the middle of nowhere or the middle of the night.
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The Poles call the lorries TIRs, I suppose in the same way we call vacuum cleaners a hoover. The young ladies in short skirts that stand by the side of the A-roads to service the needs of the lonely lorry drivers are called TIRowki.
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Wow, BBD, you live and learn here, eh?
Do they recognise Peugeots as well? ;-)
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>>The Poles call the lorries TIRs... I suppose in the same way we call vacuum cleaners a hoover..
Interesting tit-bit that BBD - worth a point in an international pub quiz at least.
If you go a (quite) bit further east from your locale, you may notice many Vauxhall 'dealerships' , well, in fact, in Russian they're 'vokzal' (I can't print the cyrillic, but it's the tansliteration of the English vauxhall) - meaning railway station in Russian. Legend has it, a technical delegation from Tsarist Russia visited England in the 1800's , and mistook the name on the S.London station for the generic name for railway stations & called their own after it.
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You can learn so much on here... indeed vokzal is Russian for train station! And I found this backing your legend...
www.vauxhallsociety.org.uk/Vokzal.html
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When they get stopped by the police do they say they are taking part in carry 'owki?
Sorry!
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