Rubbish! My wheelie bin’s a much better drive

Inventor of first road-legal refuse container says his vehicle leaves world’s fastest bin in the dust

FOR many, wheelie bins conjure up thoughts of angry letters to council officials about refuse not being collected, or deep regret at forgetting to put theirs out in time for the recycling truck.

But a different type of wheelie war has erupted as the man behind the first roadworthy wheelie bin has challenged his rival, who made the fastest converted bin, to get his on the road.

Kevin Nicks, a 58-year-old mobility scooter repairer from Oxfordshire, has converted his refuse container into a mode of transport – and it is taxed and legal to drive on the road.

It has a maximum speed of just 15mph, a fraction of the 45mph world record for the fastest wheelie bin which was set by Andy Jennings, 31, an engineer from Swindon, in 2021.

Now Mr Nicks has challenged Mr Jennings to join him on the road. “There is no way on the planet that his could ever be road-legal,” Mr Nicks insisted. “His has got an engine whereas mine is basically a mobility scooter – to make something road-legal with an engine is 299 pages of rules. Mine is classed as a class-three mobility scooter.

“It’s pointless me and him having a race because his is built for speed and mine isn’t. I have actually raced him in the world’s fastest wheelbarrow and it was the closest ever – I beat him by about half a second.”

Mr Nicks is a multiple DIY record holder, having built the world’s fastest wheelbarrow (53mph) and shed (114mph), and the longest mobility ‘Imagine sitting outside the pub and a wheelie bin drives past. I’m like a one-man exhibition’ scooter (six metres, or 22ft). The builder from Chipping Norton unveiled his latest creation last week: a blue wheelie bin he has taxed as a road-legal mobility scooter, complete with an electric motor and licence plate, and taken for its first outing on the A44 in the town.

“It’s based on a mobility scooter but at the moment it’s the only wheelie bin in the world that’s taxed. It’s got an electric motor because I’m very green, even though it’s blue,” he said.

“My reward is seeing people smile – we’ve had three or four years now of doom and gloom. Imagine sitting outside the pub with your friends and a wheelie bin drives past. I’m like a oneman exhibition.”

However, not all motorists have been happy to come across his world-fastest shed on the road.

“You get the odd person saying ‘well, that shouldn’t be on the road’, not knowing the lengths that I’ve gone to to get it on the road, which in a strange way is more approved than the car they drive,” he claimed. He has already driven more than 80,000 miles in this shed.

Mr Jennings, meanwhile, set his 45mph Guinness World Record for the fastest wheelie bin at Elvington airfield in North Yorkshire in 2021.

The pair regularly chat on Facebook and Mr Nicks deliberately did not go for speed to avoid being “disrespectful” to his rival’s efforts.

As for the next project in the pipeline, “it’s all top secret”, Mr Nicks said. “I try to build what other people haven’t.”

The man who built the world’s fastest garden shed (114mph) has now put a big blue wheelie bin on the road. With the lid on, it can trundle along at 8mph with no driver visible, though its builder, Kevin Nicks, prefers an open top on a fine day. Mr Nicks, 58, of Great Rollright, Oxfordshire, likes to put a smile on people’s faces. His wheelie bin, taxed and fitted with an electric motor, does that all right, unlike the standard models. Those bins are banes. They topple into roads, block pavements, sit as smelly eyesores in small front gardens and attract the worst instincts of bossy councils. Yesterday’s local elections should perhaps all have been fought on a Wheeliebin Party ticket. Too late for this year. One day they might be consigned to the dustbin of history. In the meantime at least we can laugh at them.