To invest in towing training or not?
Hi, I'll welcome advice from experienced towers and those who've attended training courses, please.
I'm new to caravanning, have so far only towed it about 80 miles, which felt fine; but prior to that have for some years happily towed an old steel bodied ex-camping trailer which we used to keep tent & gear in. It's only 2.5m long and is prone to disappear from rear view when the car's loaded, so backing needs quick reflexes when doing a 3 point turn in a car park! Our caravan is 5m long and at barely over 2m wide, I can see down both sides with the car's own mirrors, though I do have the extensions on, so it's not vast.
There's the CC course, either introductory or "improvers" or there's a local training centre offering one-to one tuition for 3 hours, but either way it would cost nearly £150, more for the 2 day CC intro course.
I'm naturally cautious and all for being safe, but not for throwing money out I don't need, so I'm wondering whether I'd be better advised to spend the money or, given where I am now, to save it for other things.
Thanks,
Richard
Comments
-
Hi Hedgehurst,
Lots of our members find our towing courses very helpful – if you’re not sure about taking the course just yet, why not visit us at the NEC show in February where we’ll be offering free towing course taster sessions?
2 -
Thanks Rochelle, we'll be elsewhere that time, or I'd have taken you up on this.
0 -
I don't know whether you feel you need the training ,but of the different courses you mention i would think tuition with your own caravan, rather than a borrowed one, would be the more useful. I would suggest one to one tuition as I have seen reports that group courses with six pupils to one instructor mean a lot of standing around watching other people practising reversing. And tuition which includes some on road driving sounds more realistic than simply car park driving.
0 -
I did the CC course and found it very useful and confidence building. There were six of use under the tuition of one instructor using two supplied caravans. Apart from chatting over an introductory coffee on the first morning the course was practical, and after hitching tuition and a brief drive around a very large commercial vehicle park consisted entirely of reversing practice. The practice was increasingly more difficult so that by the end on the one and a half day course we could reverse our rig into tight spaces and do three point turns with reasonable proficiency. The fact that six were sharing two vans was not a problem as watching other make mistakes can be just as educational as doing so oneself.
I thought it good value and would recommend it to any other beginners. I felt much happier a few days later when I collected my van ready for an 80 mile tow home than I suspect I would have done if I hadn't undertaken the course.
0 -
After 15 years of caravanning I did a towing course, surprising what I leant, I did it to learn the techniques of reversing into storage between caravans. A year later it was put to practice in a small town in the Pyrenees when I took the wrong road to the site, which ended in a dead end. To the amazement of onlookers, I reversed back down the road to a car park entrance, turned into it, a couple of shunts then back down the road and out of the town to get onto the right road. Also, get a discount on the caravan insurance.
1 -
I did the CC towing course a couple of year ago - learnt a lot and got to practise reversing skills which was my main concern. Still not fully confident, but I know the basics. Well worth the investment.
1 -
Not sure how this turned into two threads since I last looked, as seems to have happened, but thank you all for these comments!
0 -
As you are new to towing, and having possibly spent £1000's of pounds on a caravan, surely a mere £150 has to be a worthwhile spend in learning how to drive and manoeuvre it safely. My wife done the course years ago and said it was really helpful. She had to put it into practice a few years ago when I was unable to tow home from a site, and she coped admirably. Problem solved now as we changed to a motorhome.
1
