New daily driver (pipe & slippers mobile)

[jez1272gt]

I too am totally confused by the actual law on this as are a few people i know who tow race cars on trailers, if its not clear either way then what are you meant to do? I have looked into this properly and even phoned the DVLA and no-one has been able to give me a clear cut answer. I have had loads of people tell me that you can tow a combined vehicle/trailer of 3500kg with a regular license and others say about this 750kg max gross weight trailer. To be honest most of the people i know dont have a trailer license and as far as i know none of them have been pulled over and or questioned about it. The problem comes when you are pulled over or worse still if you are involved in an accidient senario!

What really fustrates me more than anything though is: if you passed your test before the cut off date, are you a more compentent 'tower' than  someone who has passed after this date? NO. For example i passed after '97 but have towed many big trailers (under the 750kg weight obviously). when i got my old man to tow my brain james trailer he struggled as he had never done it before!

[chris2911]

the way i understand it is you have to do a trailer test as they wont sell you a car trailer or caravan (new)
until you have the liecence to drive it if you passed your test before 1997

[Yoof]

Brian James didn't refuse £2.2k from a friend when he bought his- hire companies will usually ask for proof if train weight is over 3.5ton though.

A good friend completed his trailer test, cost almost £1k all in. If you're post 1997 you must meet the following rules:

Car & towbar type approved for towing 'x'kg
Car able to tow > MAM of trailer
Car + Occupant + MAM of trailer < 3500kg

Basically with a Polo weighing in at 830kg max, you're easily allowed to tow with a 1500kg MAM trailer, using a normal family size saloon (Volvo S60, Audi A4 etc).

In my experience, providing the trailer, the tow car, and what's on the back of the trailer look reasonably good, everything is strapped down, lights working, and you're not being a bell end doing 90mph the police will be fine- I'd say 90% aren't aware of the towing weights/laws.

[jez1272gt]

I am in total agreement with you yoof! I pull my brian james trailer with my renault trafic van which weights 2,200kg (1700kg+500kg) that leaves me 1,300kg for the car and tools and passengers which is plenty. Both the van and trailer are in very clean looking condition, (all lights and a proper number plate) the cars i have transported are always properly strapped down with nothing hanging off etc etc. Basically i dont leave anything to chance and make sure there is no reason to pull me over, after that is just unlucky if you get pulled into a random dvla road-side test somewhere!

[hayesey]

Car + Occupant

it's the MAM of the car not the actual weight of car + person in it.

This plus MAM of trailer has to be less than 3500kgs OR any total weight as long as the trailer is less than 750kgs.

I think you are unlikely to get pulled as long as you aren't clearly towing a massive trailer with a tiny car, the trailer doesn't look pikey and you arent doing anything stupid.

But as far as I'm concerned as long as I get a trailer with a MAM of about 1000kgs then I'm easily OK within the limit.

[Andy]

To be fair, how many massive caravans do you see on the motorway limping along behind a sagging and struggling Rover 25?!

You see no end of small family hatchbacks dragging caravans too heavy for them and I've never seen any of them get pulled over - even when the towing weight's blatantly being exceeded. I reckon as people have said, if it looks sensible and you're driving nicely you're unlikely to get grief.

[hayesey]

not long ago I saw a crappy looking mk3 astra with lexus lights broke down in the hard shoulder (bonnet up) which was towing a bit caravan.  I made me say el oh el.

[Nick_S]

Pah, thats nowt. For Uni field work back in '99 me and few mates bought an old skool (70's non of this fibreglass n plastic crap) 3 berth caravan. The only one of us who had a towbar fitted at the time was my mate Dan with his 1.3L mk2 Astra. Made it up to the Highlands of Scotland via some single track roads; and back with the clutch surviving Never got stopped by the rozzers