JayTea said:Body length. I searched high and low for older Hobby van lengths online without much sucess, the Hobby 575 seems to be anonymous apart from a few Gumtree adverts and one dealer who has one in stock. I called them and was told it was 7.8m total and the body was 5.25m. How wrong they were as it has a floor length of 5.75m and the body is 6.62m outside with a total length of 7.8m, well at least they got one part right.
audiorob said:When I bought my nearly-new van from an established dealer in the midlands I was provided with a print out of the stats for my car and prospective caravan to prove suitability. There are good eggs out there too - and owner-user satisfaction surveys can be a useful starting guide.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...n-sheet-maximum-length-of-vehicles.pdf[/quoteJTQ said:Then "body length" seems not to include handles, rails and windows that protrude from the main surfaces. And this seems to carry over to width, where roll out awning don't come into it and with motorhomes nor do driving mirrors.
This link might help, but it might do just the opposite!
]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/648185/information-sheet-maximum-length-of-vehicles.pdf
JayTea said:Checked on Towcar and although they didn't have my caravan listed their website allows amendments. I took the data from my owners handbook and entered it into the Towcar page and it looks like I'm well within the legal requirements.
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ProfJohnL said:I must add a note of caution about using third party matching services. I am certain they are genuinely trying to help, but it has been proven on several occasions including this one, their data bases are incomplete, or in some cases the data they do contain is wrong.
You must be very careful to ensure the data used matches exactly the actual facts about your car and caravan. Using data from similar models may not be factually correct, and will produce erroneous information, which could make an outfit illegal.
It is the responsibility of the driver to ensure their outfit is legal, and reliance on a third party service would not be a good defence.
Raywood said:The match looks very good on the basis of the data. Given that you seem to have made amendments to make sure you got nit exactly right I do not see a problem with the answer. There is the odd error in these sites but provided you check the detail of the outfit on the site you should be able to spot any error.
I appreciate what the Prof says about using this sort of information not being a complete defence, provided you can show that you have taken reasonable steps to get it right then this does constitute the basis of a defence and should reduce if not negate any fine.