CPA Bulletin

www.cpa.uk.net CPA Bulletin > February/March 2021 23 NEWS FROMCPA MEMBERS: 2 Bowmonk-Tapley has seen a significant amount of interest in the company’s portable brake testers to check the braking efficiency of these types of vehicle, as this now forms part of a scheduled safety inspection or pre-hire inspection. Often is the case that contractors require verification that a vehicle has been thoroughly checked before accessing the site. Although the operation of these types of vehicles is not governed by the Driver & Vehicle Service Agency (DVSA), the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) recognises that similar checks should be carried out, particularly as they are also roadgoing vehicles. Bowmonk has two brake tester options available. The standard DVSA approved BrakeCheck kit for all classes of vehicle (applicable to mobile cranes) and the BrakeCheck 4 Quarries, which is recognised by the HSE as a means of testing all `non-road` mobile machinery. The standard and quarry options both have the same method of checking the service brake performance. A rolling test, accelerating the vehicle to 12mph and applying the foot brake until the vehicle stops. An efficiency value is then displayed on the fascia panel. The same test procedure can be performed for checking the parking brake. The quarry option requires a different parking brake procedure. The vehicle is parked on an incline with the parking brake on. A gradient percentage is then displayed. If the vehicle holds on the parking brake, a simple pass or fail is confirmed by the driver using the appropriate button on the fascia panel. Test results are printed using the infra-red printer or downloaded to a PC. Bowmonk-Tapley also offers a comprehensive training session. BowmonkBrake Testers Point of Rental Expands into eCommerce Point of Rental has acquired RentItOnline, a Slovakia-based online booking engine and customer app for the equipment hire industry. “RentItOnline does a great job of enhancing a hire or rental store’s customer experience,” said Point of Rental CEO Wayne Harris. “As transactions are taken care of online more than ever, we feel that RentItOnline is going to enhance our current products. We want to ensure that businesses using Point of Rental are able to continue to provide a superior customer experience.” Point of Rental will first focus on integrating RentItOnline with its Syrinx product to give the platform full eCommerce capabilities, fromwebsite to customer portal. Since the acquisition of RentItOnline, Point of Rental has also acquired Rental Hosting, a web design and hosting company that builds integrated websites for rental businesses. Rental Hosting provides fully integrated websites uniquely built for rental businesses, including eCommerce, customer portal and online payments. “Rental Hosting and Point of Rental have been a part of the same family, same community, for years,” said Rental Hosting CEO Caleb Yell. “This move won’t affect current Rental Hosting customers during the transition, and they’ll reap the benefits of our closer collaboration with Point of Rental’s development team as we build an even more tightly integrated eCommerce process.”