Horsebox towing laws

spacekiwi

I am new to the equine scene, and was told by someone that I can legally tow a horsebox or trailer if the weight is below 750kg, on my normal car license.

is this correct does anyone know?
does it matter if it it single or double axel? or just the weight?

If this is right, and my horsebox weighs 500kg and horse is 245kg, then i take it I am within the law.

any light shed on this would be appreciated, thanks

MascotDec85

http://www.rsa.ie/en/RSA/Your-Vehicle/About-your-Vehicle/Example-of-non-Dup/Trailers-/Technical-Trailer-Requirements-/

Silvera

spacekiwi wrote: »

I am new to the equine scene, and was told by someone that I can legally tow a horsebox or trailer if the weight is below 750kg, on my normal car license.

is this correct does anyone know?
does it matter if it it single or double axel? or just the weight?

If this is right, and my horsebox weighs 500kg and horse is 245kg, then i take it I am within the law.

any light shed on this would be appreciated, thanks

I doubt you will find a horse box with a gross vehicle weight (gvw) of 750kg ...that's the gvw of most single-axle domestic cars trailers.

It appears that you will need to apply for category 'B+E' Learner Permit and take the relevant test.

Big Davey

spacekiwi wrote: »

I am new to the equine scene, and was told by someone that I can legally tow a horsebox or trailer if the weight is below 750kg, on my normal car license.

is this correct does anyone know?
does it matter if it it single or double axel? or just the weight?

If this is right, and my horsebox weighs 500kg and horse is 245kg, then i take it I am within the law.

any light shed on this would be appreciated, thanks

It's not just the weight on a standard licience you can only tow a single axle trailer ie: say for example the trailer weighed 100kg and the horse weighed 100kg but you had a double axel trailer you would be braking the law and probably your ins would be void too.
If you are new to towing you may be able to get a single axel trailer made with good prop stands, brakes, good axel etc to get you started but it all depends on how much your horse and equipment weighs.
It not often that I have heard of people being stopped but if you have an accident you are up sxxt creek with no paddle.

CJhaughey

Big Davey wrote: »

It's not just the weight on a standard licience you can only tow a single axle trailer ie: say for example the trailer weighed 100kg and the horse weighed 100kg but you had a double axel trailer you would be braking the law and probably your ins would be void too.
If you are new to towing you may be able to get a single axel trailer made with good prop stands, brakes, good axel etc to get you started but it all depends on how much your horse and equipment weighs.
It not often that I have heard of people being stopped but if you have an accident you are up sxxt creek with no paddle.

Number of axles have nothing to do with legality. Its all about the weight of the trailer and the towing vehicle.

Del2005

There are 2 limits for trailers on B.

The easiest is 750kg MAN/DGVW which can be towed no bother.

The other limit is that the trailer MAN/DGVW can't exceed the tow vehicles DGVW and the combination can't exceed 3.5t, except when it can be 4.25. Clear as mud

The RSA are really clamping down on trailers and towing so if you want to tow a horse box I'd just do the BE

Big Davey

CJhaughey wrote: »

Number of axles have nothing to do with legality. Its all about the weight of the trailer and the towing vehicle.

Numbers of axels have everything to do legality. You can only have a single axel 750kg on a standard licience.

_Brian

Big Davey wrote: »

Numbers of axels have everything to do legality. You can only have a single axel 750kg on a standard licience.

This incorrect.
Providing the trailer is breaked you can have a gross train weight if 3500kg combined both vehicle and trailer.
So I your towing vehicle has a DGVW of 1800kg, you can tow a trailer with a DGVW of 1700kg, providing your towing vehicle can tow this. The trailer can have one, two or three axles providing it's DGVW is not above 1700kg. Now in reality most twin axle trailer are actually DGVW that discounts them being legally pulled on a B liscence, but it's their DGVW and not number of axles that counts.
The one exception to this is where a tow vehicle has a DGVW of 3500kg itself, then it can tow a trailer with DGVW of 750kg giving a permissible design train weight of 4250kg on a regular B liscence. Focus on the DGVW of the towing vehicle and trailer combination.

Big Davey

_Brian wrote: »

This incorrect.
Providing the trailer is breaked you can have a gross train weight if 3500kg combined both vehicle and trailer.
So I your towing vehicle has a DGVW of 1800kg, you can tow a trailer with a DGVW of 1700kg, providing your towing vehicle can tow this. The trailer can have one, two or three axles providing it's DGVW is not above 1700kg. Now in reality most twin axle trailer are actually DGVW that discounts them being legally pulled on a B liscence, but it's their DGVW and not number of axles that counts.
The one exception to this is where a tow vehicle has a DGVW of 3500kg itself, then it can tow a trailer with DGVW of 750kg giving a permissible design train weight of 4250kg on a regular B liscence. Focus on the DGVW of the towing vehicle and trailer combination.

Ok I always thought a b licience only cover a single axel less than 750kg weight.

btb

Link to specs for ifor william's boxes.
http://www.iwt.co.uk/products/horsebox/hb403?tab=spec
Its the gross weight you have to consider when determining your license requirements, not the unladen weight of the box and the weight of the horse or pony you've got in it.
And its not the ability of the towing vehicle to pull the box, its its braking ability to stop the box that's the factor in question.

spacekiwi

Thanks to all that commented on this.
I work for an animal charity, and a couple of the drivers have retired. I was looking to fill the gap for the time being.
I have a l200 mitsi pickup rated at towing 2.7 ton load. The barked double axel box is weighing 1.3ton.
does this mean I can tow on my normal car license if the horse or ponies are 1.4 ton or less?
Typical confusing layout of rsa law.

Anyone know for certain.
Kind regards!

spacekiwi

sorry thats braked double axel. (not barked)

_Brian

spacekiwi wrote: »

Thanks to all that commented on this.
I work for an animal charity, and a couple of the drivers have retired. I was looking to fill the gap for the time being.
I have a l200 mitsi pickup rated at towing 2.7 ton load. The barked double axel box is weighing 1.3ton.
does this mean I can tow on my normal car license if the horse or ponies are 1.4 ton or less?
Typical confusing layout of rsa law.

Anyone know for certain.
Kind regards!

Hi again..

I'd be saying NO..
So, your regular lisence will cover you up to a max DGTW (designed gross train weight) (the DESIGNED loaded weight of both vehicle and trailer) up to 3500kg.
I'm not sure what exact model your L200 is but here's a link to the tech specs of an 02-05 model I pulled from the web
Link HERE
Under weights and capacities it lists the Gross Train weight (DGTW) as 5530kg, well beyond your license limits.

My advice is find out what the DGW of your selected trailer, if its a manufactured trailer this will be easy, if its home made then its all a bit fuzzy.
So for the link provided above the HB403, it has a Gross weight of 1600kg, subtract this from your 3500kg gives 1900kg.
So you're left with a limit of a vehicle with its DGVW at 1900KG, with a towing limit of 1600kg.

this is where the whole thing becomes a farce really..
HERE You'll see that a 180BHP Mondeo estate is too big with a DGVW of 2330kg

but you could be legal with this Octavia Hatchback as its GVW is 1855kg and its rated to pull 1800kg.

Bet the mud's getting even more less clearer now :o

The solution to your problem is get the license to tow the trailer, its going to be impractical for you to go out and buy a trailer/tow vehicle combination..

Del2005

spacekiwi wrote: »

Thanks to all that commented on this.
I work for an animal charity, and a couple of the drivers have retired. I was looking to fill the gap for the time being.
I have a l200 mitsi pickup rated at towing 2.7 ton load. The barked double axel box is weighing 1.3ton.
does this mean I can tow on my normal car license if the horse or ponies are 1.4 ton or less?
Typical confusing layout of rsa law.

Anyone know for certain.
Kind regards!

It doesn't matter what weight the animals are. The licence is based on the MAN/DGVW of the trailer, and the weight your vehicle can tow, and the DGVW of the tow vehicle. The trailer weight comes into affect in that it has to reduced from the MAN/DGVW to see what the max load it can take is.

The L200 has a DGVW of 2.9 tonnes so all you can tow with that on a B licence is a trailer with MAN/DGVW of 0.6tonnes .

currins_02

_Brian wrote: »

This incorrect.
Providing the trailer is breaked you can have a gross train weight if 3500kg combined both vehicle and trailer.
So I your towing vehicle has a DGVW of 1800kg, you can tow a trailer with a DGVW of 1700kg, providing your towing vehicle can tow this. The trailer can have one, two or three axles providing it's DGVW is not above 1700kg. Now in reality most twin axle trailer are actually DGVW that discounts them being legally pulled on a B liscence, but it's their DGVW and not number of axles that counts.
The one exception to this is where a tow vehicle has a DGVW of 3500kg itself, then it can tow a trailer with DGVW of 750kg giving a permissible design train weight of 4250kg on a regular B liscence. Focus on the DGVW of the towing vehicle and trailer combination.

Almost 100%, I would just add that to tow a trailer greater than DGVW of 750kg on a B licence (as opposed to an EB licence) then additionally the DGVW (now authorities are calling this Maximum Allowable Mass MAM) of the trailer must be the same as or less than the Unladen Weight of the drawing vehicle (empty weight or car/van/jeep). So in your example it would highly unlikely that you could legally tow a 1,700kg DGVW trailer on a drawing vehicle of 1,800kg DGVW (as ULW would be considerably less). Reference the RSA website or even P14 of Rules of the Road - http://www.rotr.ie/rules-of-the-road-eng.pdf.