more and more confused

[petelee]

hi

we've been looking for our first van and have decided on a twin axle we went to northampton to look at one off e-bay today and was so impressed after doing all the checks i,d learnt off this forum (thanx)we put a deposit down and was ready to go and fetch it tuesday but by total fluke i stumbled across info telling me a 2.5m wide van is illegal to tow with a frontera was a tad upset as the owner knew we wanted to tour with the van.Just spotted another one the owner says its 8 foot wide and legal beginning to think all twin axles are too wide is there a surefire way of knowing.Is anything wider than 2.3 illegal with a conventional car/4x4

 

[Lutz]

As you can see from the following website page, it is illegal in the UK to tow a trailer over 2.3m of the towing vehicle has a GVW of less than 3.5 tonnes.

http://www.ntta.co.uk/law/law/dimensions.htm
It's an anachronistic law and I don't really know what the one has to do with the other, but that's the way it stands.

 

[patricia_5041765]

Yes, we had the same problem.we NEARLY baught a Hobby that was illegal..we now have one that is within the UK limits.I dont know why the law hasnt changed yet!?

 

[Lutz]

I don't understand why this law hasn't been changed, either, Patricia. In fact, I wrote to the Vehicle Standards and Engineering Division of the Department for Transport to ask what relevance the weight of the towcar has with the width of the trailer but the answer I got was that there were no plans at present to bring UK law into line with EU regulations in this respect. It's a shame really because about half the caravans on the market on the Continent are over 2.3m wide and there are undoubtedly some nice ones among them but which are not legally available to UK buyers for this very reason.