Top Quality Low Cost Caravan Towing Courses across the UK

You may have noticed that caravanning has become very popular here in the UK. People are discovering that owning a caravan offers a lot of opportunities to travel around the country rather inexpensively. For the cost of petrol and the payments on your trailer, you can travel the length and breadth of the country while virtually taking your house with you. But there is a catch: you need to have an additional entitlement on your licence if you passed your car test on or after 1 January 1997.

The good news is that the HGVT (HGV Training Services LTD) Training Centre includes a top-of-the-line caravan towing course among our many offerings. No, we do not offer driver training exclusively to professionals. Even those who do not drive for a living can utilise one of our training courses to learn how to tow a caravan, cargo trailer, or horsebox trailer.

Our caravan towing course is identical to our cargo trailer course inasmuch as the law does not designate any difference between the two kinds of vehicles apart from weight. Vehicles within the same weight class require the same category of driving licence to operate. So if you obtain your Category B+E licence for a small caravan and tow vehicle, you will also be able to tow cargo and horsebox trailers of similar weight.

How Licence Categories Are Determined

The students who take our caravan towing course are usually after either a Category B+E or Category C1 licence. The differences between the two have little to do with size and everything to do with weight. If you look at the different licence categories as listed on the GOV.UK website, you will notice how important weight is in determining licence category.

For example, the Category B+E licence entitles drivers who earned it after 19 January 2013 to use tow vehicles up to 3,500 kg to tow trailers of the same weight limit. Those who obtained their licences earlier can tow heavier trailers with tow vehicles weighing up to 3,500 kg. The weights listed by the government are based on maximum authorised mass (MAM), by the way.

MAM is the total amount of weight when combining a trailer with all of its cargo. As a caravan owner, you can find out what the MAM of your vehicle is by consulting either the literature that came from your manufacturer or the label or plate affixed to your caravan. Manufacturers are required to provide this information by law.

It is important to note that MAM and unladen weight are not the same things. Where MAM is the combined weight of trailer and cargo, unladen weight is the real weight of the vehicle without any cargo added. This is an important distinction to know in light of the fact that licence categories are based on MAM rather than unladen weight.

Getting a Licence for Your Caravan

Now that you know a little bit more about licences and weights, we want to get back to the original topic of caravan towing courses. Unless you got your car licence before 1 January 1997, you would need an additional entitlement to tow your caravan. In order to get that entitlement, you will have to pass the UK car and trailer test.

This test has been in use for quite some time now. Over the years, the test has been adjusted to take into account changing regulations and various driving conditions. But it is essentially the same test as it has always been. It takes about an hour and has three primary components:

1. Road driving – the examiner takes the candidates out on the road for a few minutes of real-world driving.
2. Closed course driving – the examiner puts the candidate through a series driving tests on a closed course at the testing facility.
3. Vehicle safety questions – the examiner asks the candidate a series of vehicle safety-related questions that require both verbal answers and physical demonstrations.

As you take your test, the examiner will be recording faults for every mistake you make. If you reach the fault limit, you will fail the test. Our job at the HGVT (HGV Training Services LTD) Training Centre is to make sure that does not happen. To that end, we have designed a caravan towing course that teaches you everything you need to know to perform well in front of the examiner.

In preparation for the road and closed course driving, you’ll learn the necessary skills to demonstrate to the examiner that you can handle towing a trailer. In anticipation of the vehicle safety questions, you will learn all of the practical knowledge you need to know to answer the questions correctly. By the time you complete our caravan towing course, you will be very confident in your ability to perform.

Quality and Speed Combined

There are lots of companies and independent organisations offering caravan towing courses in the UK. Bear in mind that not every towing course is comparable in terms of quality and speed. Some courses offer excellent quality but take forever and a day to complete. Others are extremely short, but they barely teach you anything important. The HGVT (HGV Training Services LTD) Training Centre is different in that we offer the right combination of both.

Our quality is easily seen in the processes we follow and the people we employ. For example, we are extremely careful to choose only experienced and capable instructors to work in our training facilities. Each of our instructors has real-world experience along with the ability to provide individual help to students as they progress through training. We are confident in saying that our instructors are 100% dedicated to the success of students.

You will also observe the quality of our programmes through our excellent support staff. It is the duty of the support staff to guide students through training programmes, answer questions they might have, handle all administrative tasks, and provide additional help as necessary.

Regarding speed, the HGVT (HGV Training Services LTD) training approach rests on the belief that it is important to get students trained and licenced as quickly as possible. Other training providers might require a month or two of training in order to get a trailer licence. We do not. Our comprehensive caravan towing course for inexperienced drivers can be completed in just five days under normal conditions. Some students need to take longer, and that’s fine, but most can get it done in the allotted time.

Do not be alarmed by how quickly we can get your training done. We don’t sacrifice quality for speed. Rather, we complete training in five days or less by utilising an intensive training approach that is fast-paced and concentrated. Our training methodology takes advantage of short-term memory to ensure every student learns successfully and correctly recalls information at exam time.

Train with Us before You Tow

You have invested quite a bit of financial resources in your caravan. Do not trust your safety and the safety of your family to mere chance and limited experience; train with us before you tow your caravan. Our caravan towing course is just what you need to learn all the fundamentals of towing a trailer under any conditions. It is also the perfect preparation tool as you get ready to take the car and trailer test.