Cat B licence holder And trailers

abbiegirl

abbiegirl

Abbie and Anny
Jul 14, 2006
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wrexham, north wales
Hi i am sorry if this has already been asked but i was wandering if the cars GROSS Capacity Weight (GCW) comes into the equasion when trying to figure out if you can drive a trailer on the cat B licence?
DVLA and Vosa sites just go by the MAM from what i can see :confused: and ask if the combined weight is under 3500kg ( but does that mean the car + trailer you are towing or what the car is capable of towing) :confused:

My Jeep has a MAM of 2200kg
My trailer has a MAM of 1300kg
Combined weight MAM 3500kg

The trailer weighs Much less than the car-s Kerb weight and i am in the 3500kg limit, so far, according to the figures i can tow it on my Cat B licence from what the dvla say.

BUT My Jeep has a Gross Capacity Weight of (GCW) 4200kg ( which means that the car +trailer must not exceed 4200kg but i will not be towing that as the trailer weighs less than 1300 kg fully loaded ( pony + extras) . Can someone please shed some light on this? ( if they can) :confused:
i am VERY comfused!! :confused:
 
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That's so funny I was just going to start a thread on this very thing!!

I didn't realise that could tow a trailer at all if passed test after 97,but it seems you can!!

From looking at the ifor williams website (has a whole section on it in their FAQ),it seems you will be fine towing with your combination.

From what I can gather can tow up to 3500kg (includes vehicle and trailer)providing your trailers MAM does not exceed your vehicles unladen weight.

This is how it is put on the ifor site:

The MAM of the trailer must not exceed the
unladen weight of the towing vehicle, and
the combined MAM of the trailer and
vehicle must not exceed 3500kg if the
MAM of the trailer is more than 750kg.

The gross capacity weight or whatever doesn't seem to come into it,from the sounds of it you will be fine:)
 
But what about the weight of the horse??

From what I know, if you pass your test after 97, you can't tow a trailer BUT you can tow a trailer if you have someone sitting in the vehicle that passed before 97 (even if they have never towed in there life, doenst make sense) but you have to have "L" plates on the back.
 
Have looked into towing and weight limits LOADS as can't affor dmy towing licence and the answer i have got is that the weight of the towing vehicle combined with the MAM/MGW of the trailer can not exceed 3.5 tonnes to driven on an ordinary licence so sounds like you can definitely tow :D

(what trailer do you have please?? Am looking to tow with my jeep :) )

The gross capacity weight is what the manufacturer recommends in the interests of safety - to be ulitmately safe whatever you tow shouldn't be more than 80% of the weight of the vehicle so you want to make sure that trailer + horse is not over that amount (or trailer+horse+jeep is less than gross capacity)

Clear as mud???

DVLA are ultimately helpful for me as i have an HGV licence so can drive any vehicle of any weight but still can't tow an Ifor williams 505 with a discovery :rolleyes:
 
Thankyou for all of your help :)
The trailer is an old rice trailer ( poss a rice eventer). unleiden weight of 610kg and it has a mam of 1423kg but i rang rice richardson and they said they will be able to "derate" it to 1300kg mam for me as i will only be taking my pony who weighs approx 200kg :) at no extra cost :)
 
omgosh that seems VERY light for a trailer, espc a rice, i alwas thought they were heavier. Is it a single? they are heavier than ifors.. my 505 was derated to 2tonnes... its unladen weight is about 960kg i think, are you absolutely sure about your weights? even my wee caravan weighs more than that.... and your pony must be teeny too!
 
BlueWicked said:
omgosh that seems VERY light for a trailer, espc a rice, i alwas thought they were heavier. Is it a single? they are heavier than ifors.. my 505 was derated to 2tonnes... its unladen weight is about 960kg i think, are you absolutely sure about your weights? even my wee caravan weighs more than that.... and your pony must be teeny too!
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Yes i am positive :) I gave all the dimentions to the man from rice richardson and he confirmed the weight and even commented that it was one of the lightest trailers rice ever made :) it is a 2 horse trailer will take 2 finer type 15 hh horses :) He also said they done a Rice "newforest" model which has an unlaiden weight of 648kg mam of 1461 kg to take 2 14.2hh.
it is a very old trailer and i hve replaced the floor with aluminium so it coul poss be lighter now ( am taking it to the weigh bridge this week to be doubley sure)
Maybe the trailer companys are making the newer trailers heavier now to make sure people have to take their towing test???
 
sapphire95 said:
But what about the weight of the horse??

From what I know, if you pass your test after 97, you can't tow a trailer BUT you can tow a trailer if you have someone sitting in the vehicle that passed before 97 (even if they have never towed in there life, doenst make sense) but you have to have "L" plates on the back.
Click to expand...

As long as weight of the horse is within the max weight for the trailer then shouldn't matter what the exact weight of the horse is,if that makes sense??.

As an example Ifor williams state that on of the advantages of their single horse trailer is that it can easily be towed by some family cars,and can potentially be towed by cat B drivers,this is due to it having an unladen weight of only 750kg,and max weight of 1600kg,so your horse must be within that limit (should think most would be lol),and then as long as your vehicle is 1900kg or less (but not less than 1600kg),should be fine to tow.
That is how I read it anyway!! Kind of makes sense if you think about it.

You also can tow with a pre 97 driver sat beside you as you say.

posie said:
is it worth the risk?? it's such a grey area with different authorities seemingly advising different things that personally i'd rather just take the test and be sure i'm legal ;)
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TBH I don't think a company like Ifor williams would be giving out wrong information,like I said they have used this as part of the advertising for their latest single horse trailer,wouldn't have thought they would risk the liability aspect if weren't certain about it??

Is a bit of an annoying thing to get clear from authorities though I agree!!
 
the only way youd tow an ifor without having sat your test would be if it was single and you had the minimum required towing vehicle... im pretty sure. is it a single you are going for? (sorry, have just re-read your post and see you actually said it is single.... sorry, its late and im bleary eyed).

eta - the info the ifor website relates soley to licensing laws... there are other laws you have to adhere to , enforced by VOSA regarding weight ratios. It is a European law I believe which VOSA ARE enforcing and cracking down on.It was actually an Ifor Williams centre that alerted me to this in the first place.
 
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BlueWicked said:
the only way youd tow an ifor without having sat your test would be if it was single and you had the minimum required towing vehicle... im pretty sure. is it a single you are going for? (sorry, have just re-read your post and see you actually said it is single.... sorry, its late and im bleary eyed).

eta - the info the ifor website relates soley to licensing laws... there are other laws you have to adhere to , enforced by VOSA regarding weight ratios. It is a European law I believe which VOSA ARE enforcing and cracking down on.It was actually an Ifor Williams centre that alerted me to this in the first place.
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Is all very confusing isn't it!! I think the single ifor and a big enough but not too big towing vehicle would be one of the few way's like you say of getting around the cat B thing,well going by Ifor's website anyway.Not sure about anything else though,all a bit of an unknown it seems.

I went for the real playing it safe option,have a landrover disco TD5,and an ifor williams single horse trailer,and as only have a 14hh fell pony,am guessing I will definitely be ok with that combination;):p:D
 
BlueWicked said:
yeh, lol :) but youd need your cat B+E!:)
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Oops yes that is true,was thinking more about the weight issues you mentioned rather than what OP actually posted about:eek:.
Fortunately for me OH who will be driving and towing is far too old to have to worry about the post 1997 bit (or unfortunately for him from an age POV I suppose;):p).

Really does seem a bit of a nightmare for all these younger people though,not to mention expensive with towing tests etc.
 
its expensive... :rolleyes: my hubby did the test as neither of us have cat B+E :( we also needed it for towing our caravan with our van as the combo is over 3.5tonnes... this was before i got back into horses, so i reckon he rues the day now he has to tow me everywhere:rolleyes: Im defo going to do mine as soon as i can afford it though. I see VOSA checkpoints regularly, its never worth the risk to attempt to tow outwith the law, weights or license, apart from the dangers, you can be heavily fined and find your insurance is invalid:rolleyes:
 
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