Motorists tow all kinds of things in the UK, but it doesn't matter if you are towing a caravan, small trailer, horse box, or even a boat, you need to be aware of what your licence entitles you to drive (and the cost of upgrading your licence should you need to), the laws governing towing in the UK and how you can improve your trailer-toting skills.
Below we will cover all of the above, with a feature on page 2 from when Auto Express spent a day with the Caravan and Motorhome Club learning how to drive safely when hitched. So read on for your complete guide to towing in the UK.
Towing licence: what can you legally drive?
Drivers who passed pre-1997
You need a full driving licence to tow any kind of trailer, and if you passed your test before 1997 you should be entitled to drive a vehicle and trailer that together weigh a maximum of 8.25 tonnes. This Maximum Authorised Mass or MAM means you’re pretty much covered for most things, including large 4x4s or vans pulling hefty caravans or boats. In fact, to get anywhere near the limit, you'd probably need to be driving a 7.5 tonne truck – although if it was fully laden, it would limit your trailer to three quarters of a tonne – or a big American RV pulling a car.
Drivers who passed post-1997
For drivers who passed their test after January 1st 1997 – the MAM limit in that is 4.25 tonnes, and that’s only with a tow vehicle of 3.5 tonnes, which would limit the trailer to 750kgs. If you want to pull a trailer over 750kgs on a post-1997 driving licence, the combined tow vehicle and trailer MAM drops to 3.5 tonnes.
As an added complication, the trailer MAM must be lower than the tow vehicle’s weight, too. This shouldn’t be too much of a worry though, as most car towing (on a trailer) or caravan towing combinations fall within these parameters.
How much does it cost to upgrade your towing licence?
Assuming you passed your test after 1997, but would like to tow something with an MAM above 4.25 tonnes, you can upgrade your trailer entitlement via an additional car and trailer driving test at a cost of £115 if you take it during the normal working week. Taking it duringt the evening, weekend or bank holiday costs £141. It is known as the BE test, which is run through DVSA bus and lorry test centres.
There is no legal requirement to take professional lessons beforehand. But if you do opt to take lessons with a professional driving school, you could find yourself shelling out a £600-£700 – perhaps even more once you’ve paid the test fee – for the privilege.
UK towing and trailer regulations
There are various different rules and regulations that need to be adhered to when towing a trailer or caravan, and they are as follows:
• Trailer width and length. The maximum width for any trailer is 2.55m, and the maximum length for a trailer towed by a sub-3.5 tonne vehicle is 7m (although this does not include the A-frame should you be towing with one). The same size rules apply if your tow car is a MINI or a Hummer.
• Approved tow bars. All tow bars fitted to vehicles registered after 1998 need to be Type Approved to meet EU regulations, and be of a suitable design for your vehicle. Approved tow bars will have labels or a plate with an approval number and details of the vehicles it is approved for.
• Towing mirrors. The law says you must have ant adequate view of the road behind you, so if you’ve a caravan or a wide, tall trailer that obscures your view (i.e. wider than the rear of your car), the chances are that you may need to fit extendable mirrors. If you’re stopped and a policeman thinks you can’t see properly, you could get 3 licence points and a £1,000 (maximum) fine.
• Trailer brakes. If your trailer or caravan weighs over 750kgs when loaded, the law states a braking system must be fitted, and be in good working order. This also applies to a car towed on an A-frame – the law sees the towed car as a trailer, so there must be viable braking system in place. Dollies used by recovery vans and the like, are exempted by government guidelines when towing broken down vehicles at low speeds. They mustn’t be used for general towing purposes, unless the required braking criteria can be met.
• Number plates. You have to show the same number plate on your trailer as on the tow car. The number plate must be illuminated if driving at night. If you are towing multiple trailers, fix the licence plate at the back.
• Trailer lighting. A road legal trailer must have two red sidelights, two red brake lights, amber indicators, and a pair of triangular red reflectors at the back. Trailers over 1.3m wide are also required to have fog lamp. Trailers built after 1990 must also have white reflectors at the front (excluding boat trailers), unless they’re over 1.6m wide in which case front position lamps are required.
Towing weights and vehicle towing capacities
It is important that you understand the limitations of your equipment. Car towing capacities will be listed in the owner’s handbook, but you must make sure you’re looking at the specific numbers relevant to your model – maximum towing weights can vary considerably with different engine and gearbox combinations.
It’s no good knowing your vehicle’s maximum towing capacity if you don’t know what your trailer can handle – or whether your load will put it over the limitations of your trailer, or the law. You need to find out all the necessary information to ensure you're on the right side of the law before you hit the road. Recently built trailers should all have plates with weight and loading information, and if you have an old trailer you may need to take it to a local weighbridge.
You also need to know the maximum permissible trailer nose weight that your tow vehicle can handle. This is the weight of the trailer pushing down on the tow bar, and you can measure it by putting the laden trailer’s jockey wheel on the bathroom scales. If the nose weight is heavier than the tow bar can take, you need to redistribute the trailer load to balance things out a bit better.
Keep in mind the best advice from the Caravan Club is that nose weight should ideally be seven per cent of overall laden weight, but if you have a heavy trailer don’t worry too much if your nose weight needs to be lower than the recommended seven per cent in order to meet the tow bar design limits.
It’s also important to counterbalance the nose with weight placed as close as possible to the axle, as too much weight at the rear of your trailer is potentially dangerous from a stability perspective. However, all tow car and trailer combinations are different, and if you’re not confident about any of these aspects of towing, it’s best to seek advice from a professional.
How to improve your towing skills
Caravan and trailer retailers, as well as the Caravan Club, are all able to help with the knowledge required to set up you with a safe car and trailer (or caravan) outfit. The Caravan Club also runs sensibly priced practical courses for drivers wanting to practice manoeuvring skills, as well as find out basic safety critical info about trailer loading and hitching up. If you go onto page 2, we have an in-depth feature on taking such a course.
With more people favouring the ‘staycation’ – that is, choosing to remain in the UK rather than taking their holidays abroad – caravanning is growing in popularity. Even as many schools start a new term, lots of sites will still be busy as caravanners without children enjoy the balmy late summer weather.
But there’s more to pulling your home from home than simply hitching it to a tow hook and setting the sat-nav. To find out just how complex it is, we joined the newly-rebranded Caravan and Motorhome Club (C&MC) in West Sussex for a day in the hot seat.
The organisation was founded in 1907 and today represents the interests of around a million members. It has 15 centres nationwide, and over the past 30 years it has trained more than 53,000 people to safely tow their caravan around the country.
Our instructor is Keith Rogers, a dedicated ’vanner since 1988 who’s worked with the C&MC for nearly 10 years. We’re here to attempt the club’s ‘Caravan Manoeuvring’ course – a one-day, £175 assessment that sees applicants spend an hour or so in the classroom before hitching an empty caravan to their own car.
While Keith’s list of entertaining stories is longer than our arm, the purpose of the day is important. Few people properly understand the dangers associated with towing, and many are put off completely by the prospect of reversing and manoeuvring around sites. Keith has trained everyone from complete novices to people who’ve been towing for more than 45 years.
He teaches us the basics using a diecast model of a BMW X5 and a single-axle four-berth caravan. Touching on hazards such as snaking, pitching and jack-knifing, he shows us how best to load the caravan and how to properly distribute any excess weight.
He also hammers home the importance of the car and caravan being properly matched. “Go for the smallest caravan you’re comfortable in, but the largest car you can afford,” he explains.
The club recommends that the laden caravan does not exceed 85 per cent of the towing car’s kerbweight. But it’s also worth noting that anyone who passed their test after January 1997 must keep the combined weight of car and trailer below 3.5 tonnes, unless they have had additional training.
Keith tells us a common misconception is for owners to load their caravan with heavy items such as chairs, tables and camping kit, rather than placing them in the car. As such, it’s always best to place weightier gear in the boot, rather than load it in the trailer; all caravans have a Maximum Technical Permissible Laden Mass (MTPLM) that must be adhered to.
After a couple of cups of coffee and a stint staring at the screen, we make our way outside. Here, Keith pulls a pair of square mirrors from his Land Rover Freelander: “It’s illegal to tow [a caravan] without extension mirrors,” he tells us. “And equally illicit to leave them on after you’ve unhitched.”
With a bit of help, we successfully secure them to our Skoda Kodiaq – the C&MC’s reigning Tow Car of the Year. The difference these mirrors make is remarkable, allowing us lots of extra vision beyond the caravan’s bulky wheelarches and wide frame.
Once we’ve set up, Keith guides us into position, from which we can hitch the caravan on to the Kodiaq’s £860 optional electrically folding tow bar. The six-point process, which includes lowering the jockey wheel, connecting the electrics and releasing the brake, appears complicated at first, but after a couple of attempts, the trailer is attached and we’re ready to go.
To begin with, Keith gets us to drive in a simple figure of eight. Granted, the empty shell doesn’t weigh very much, but it’s immediately obvious how adept the Skoda is at towing. If it weren’t for the big white box in the rear-view mirror, you’d never know it was there.
After grasping that even on full lock the car and caravan won’t collide, we’re confident enough to attempt our first manoeuvre. Keith lays out a series of cones and instructs us to do a simple U-turn – something that, on paper at least, should be intuitive to complete and relatively straightforward. But on our first attempt, we unintentionally nudge a cone as the caravan turns too early. Keith has seen it a thousand times before.
“If you want to turn back on yourself, it’s easier and safer to turn out before you turn in,” he tells us. “That’ll give you bags more room and should ensure you don’t clip anything with the inside rear wheel.”
He’s right; by going wide on the entry and making a more open ‘U’ shape, our second attempt is clean, and every other turn we make is completed without issue.
Next up, it’s time to stick it in reverse. This, as you’d expect, is where many caravan owners start to struggle. But Keith’s advice (and patience) means we quickly get the hang of things. “Go slow and make sure your inputs are gentle,” he tells us.
Our towing guru has placed an orange marker on each of the caravan’s wheelarches, and by keeping them both in view, we can be sure that we’re reversing in a straight line. Of course, when reversing a trailer, it isn’t a case of merely steering in the desired direction. Doing so sends the caravan the opposite way. If you want to nudge it left, turn the wheel to the right, and vice versa.
Once you’ve got your head around things, it’s a really logical process. As soon as one of the markers disappears, a gentle prod in the opposite direction swiftly swings things back into line. Before long, we’re reversing around a corner and up a tight gravel track.
The final part of our day-long course is reverse-bay parking. It’s a thought that initially fills us with dread, but is a process many caravan owners have to carry out on a regular basis. Slotting into a numbered pitch on a British or European campsite will, more often than not, require a tight manoeuvre – in and among other vans, tents and playing children.
But with Keith’s help, the whole process is made straightforward. You initially turn the wheel in the opposite direction to meet your intended trajectory. As this sends the caravan towards the space, full opposite lock will ensure it straightens up and slots nicely into place. Pulling forward ever so slightly brings both of those wheelarch markers into view, before allowing us to reverse dead straight into our desired position.
In just a few hours we’ve got to grips with the basics, but feel adept enough to tackle almost all the procedures an average caravanner may face on a trip. It’s a wonder more people don’t take part in the Caravan and Motorhome Club’s basic training. For those regularly pulling a 750kg fibreglass caravan up and down the motorways, it’d be £175 well spent.
For more advice on towing a caravan, such as the laws and regulations, visit our towing guide.
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