How to tell if you need a towing licence

[agg221]

This man is psychic!

 

Not psychic - just a good guess from your User ID

 

I have also read the heated arguments on SII forums. Not sure which way it would go but I would certainly be prepared to go to 4000kg on air brakes, bearing in mind this would be towing sawlogs slowly on back roads, so not actually any worse than common practice on agricultural registrations.

 

Alec

[SWB58]

My son's mother in law had the opposite happen. Got her licence back with entitlement to drive everything under the sun. She used it to hire a dirty great removals lorry when she moved house, she'd never been near a lorry before!

 

I've heard that if you have any issues with your licence/entitlements you have to be able to quote date, time and place when you took your test. Unsurprisingly not many people can.

 

Edit. agg221, I thought that name was vaguely familiar. It's a small world, even smaller now. Cheers.

Edited January 24, 2017 by SWB58

[Al Cormack]

Your out of date the gearbox procedure has gone

 

 

 

Its all auto boxes now for LGV / PSV.

 

 

I did my ce back in the autumn last year and that was in an 18t wagon and drag with a manual gearbox with low and hi box.

 

 

http://www.cormacktreecare.co.uk

Edited January 24, 2017 by Al Cormack

[Blah]

Also worth mentioning that you need to have passed your driving license pre-97 *in the UK*.

 

I passed mine in Belgium pre-97 and had it converted when I moved to the UK in 2000. I found out that I did not have B+E entitlement after years of towing trailers.

[Rich Rule]

My son's mother in law had the opposite happen. Got her licence back with entitlement to drive everything under the sun. She used it to hire a dirty great removals lorry when she moved house, she'd never been near a lorry before!

 

I've heard that if you have any issues with your licence/entitlements you have to be able to quote date, time and place when you took your test. Unsurprisingly not many people can.

 

Edit. agg221, I thought that name was vaguely familiar. It's a small world, even smaller now. Cheers.

 

I did that mate. With evidence and it was worth Sweet FA.

[Mark Bolam]

If I'm ever in a similar situation to Rich, what would be the best way to preserve my C1+E 12000kg?

[Treewolf]

I have heard of a Police motorcyclist whose licence came back ... with the motorcycle entitlement removed! Apparently he had one hell of a job getting it back!

 

I was lucky enough to be able to take my full car test well before it became complicated, and then go straight to HGV Class 1. It was so much simpler then. I don't really understand why it is that as the tests and licences have become so much more complicated, the standard of driving seems to have become so much worse! Surely the whole idea is that the standard should go up.

 

On a different note, how do all these holidaymakers now get away towing small cars on "A" frames behind huge motorhomes? My understanding is that an "A" frame is legal only for recovering a broken-down vehicle to the nearest place of safety, and not for anything else. These cars all have a MAM in excess of 750kg so need fully performing autoreverse brakes on all wheels, and then there's the small problem that you can't reverse a vehicle on an "A" frame because the steering goes doolally.

 

Yet they seem to get away with it in large numbers!

 

Thanks to JustMe for starting this thread and for handling so many questions is such a helpful and patient way! This has become a very useful thread, despite the extreme wierdness in the early stages.

[Stubby]

I think that copper had to take his test again if I remember correctly . It was then that people started to photo copies of their licence before sending them off for renewal .

[Daniël Bos]

I have heard of a Police motorcyclist whose licence came back ... with the motorcycle entitlement removed! Apparently he had one hell of a job getting it back!

 

I was lucky enough to be able to take my full car test well before it became complicated, and then go straight to HGV Class 1. It was so much simpler then. I don't really understand why it is that as the tests and licences have become so much more complicated, the standard of driving seems to have become so much worse! Surely the whole idea is that the standard should go up.

 

On a different note, how do all these holidaymakers now get away towing small cars on "A" frames behind huge motorhomes? My understanding is that an "A" frame is legal only for recovering a broken-down vehicle to the nearest place of safety, and not for anything else. These cars all have a MAM in excess of 750kg so need fully performing autoreverse brakes on all wheels, and then there's the small problem that you can't reverse a vehicle on an "A" frame because the steering goes doolally.

 

Yet they seem to get away with it in large numbers!

 

Thanks to JustMe for starting this thread and for handling so many questions is such a helpful and patient way! This has become a very useful thread, despite the extreme wierdness in the early stages.

Towing a frames and recovery a frames are different.

A recovery one, doesn't need brakes to work but may only be used for actual recovery.

 

A "proper" towing one, with a fixed rigid attachment point to the car can be used legally.

The car then becomes a trailer.

Though there are cars under 750kg (smart, seicento, modified aygo and a few others) this is only relevant for the towing category on the license.

If a trailer (of any weight) has brakes fitted, they need to be fully functional.

There are several systems to allow for this, ranging from simple overrun cables to the brake pedal, air, electro-hydraulic, fully electric, etc and combinations of the above.

A tow car on an a frame can be reversed just fine, on a recovery a frame anything other than the slightest of curves can cause problems.

 

As far as the whopping great size, most are built like caravans, so though of a large size are fairly lightweight.

 

Sent from my E5823 using Arbtalk mobile app

[SWB58]

 

As far as the whopping great size, most are built like caravans, so though of a large size are fairly lightweight.

 

Sent from my E5823 using Arbtalk mobile app

 

Doesn't that come down to taxation class? They used to be able to put some sort of living accommodation in HGVs which would enable a tax class change and someone with a car licence could drive it.

Keep the comments coming lads, JustMe is going to have a fit when he sees this lot