Hello all,
I went to Halfords yesterday to pick up a bike rack, and the bloke there told me that racks that use straps to hold the rack onto the back door are being made illegal in the next few weeks and you can be stopped by police.
Instead they have to be towbar/roofrack mounted, or use metal clamps to attach to the back door instead of nylon straps.
Can anyone therefore recommend a good roofrack or brand of roofrack that will not be illegal soon.
Thanks

Some chap posted that over on mtbwales,and i was wondering if anyone on here knows if its true or not? Personally i think the halfords guy is taking the piss,to get a better sale?

FFS!

I hope thats not true
my rack isnt that old, I'll be dammed if I'm buying a new one.

 The Coppers will just have to catch me..

Just a cunning sales ploy then!

Funnily enough I just bought the Halfords advanced high mount 3 bike rack this weekend.  The reason I bought it was because it had metal clamps and no textile straps.  It wasn't a choice made for the reason above, just that I've watched straps slip and my bike get nearer the road whilst driving and the thought of losing my pride and joy was too much to bear.

The instructions could have been better but once set up for the car I can now get it on and off in a couple of minutes.  Its rock solid and clamps on like a Leech without damaging the paintwork.  I'm very pleased.

It's been reduced in price to £80 and I used a 10% discount voucher off a back of Cornflakes to get it for £72, so I reckon a real bargain.

We had thsi before and me and Arry discussed it at length

 I thaught they where Illegal as they dont attach to a load supporting part of the car IE roof rack fixing points they enforce it on the continent unless YOU can prove that the rack is approved by the car manufacturer...

but Arry said as long as they are correctly fitted it shouldn't be a problem.. 

from  http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3826

Basically the mainland countries have the same regulations about loads attached to cars as us. But they enforce them.

They enforce them especially in places where they expect to find a lot of cars with dodgy loads attached, i.e. holiday traffic, i.e. near ferry ports. And they enforce them with real on-the-spot fines (none of our semi-detached fixed-penalty-in-the-post fudge).

At home and abroad on any vehicle: you must not have anything, not even a spoke, obscuring the least little bit of any lamp or number plate from the view of an observer. And you must not have an "unsafe load".

Lights and number are easily fixed (at a cost) with a lighting board hung on behind the bikes. But the definition of an unsafe load is somewhat open to interpretation. If the carrier is approved by the car manufacturer, that is a good start. Few strap-on carriers are thus approved. In some countries that may be taken as an assumption against strap-on carriers – unless you have a piece of paper to show that your model of car is approved with the carrier in question. From members living in France we know that there are procedures for getting an approved strap-on carrier for some models of car – in France. Unfortunately the system in Britain is a whole lot more laissez-faire.

Generally it seems you are safer with a towball carrier, since the towball is a properly tested fixture. Roofrack cycle carriers are also more of a known quantity with recognised test procedures. That doesn’t make strap-on illegal, but if your load doesn’t rely entirely upon a few bits of webbing it’s just a lot less likely that the policeman will tug at them, suck his teeth and say "non".

And whilst British police do not really like to upset drivers, they seem to be taking a harder line since a motorcyclist was killed the other year – by a load of bikes suddenly dumped in his path! So whether or not you intend to take them abroad, it's worth getting a really solid method of transporting your bikes.

Only thing to remember with the roof mount, is to watch out for low obstacles such as trees, low bridges and car park height barriers.

Had a few close calls myself!