Have your say to help make roads safer when towing
The Club does a lot of work behind the scenes, working with other organisations, manufacturers and agencies to ensure your views are heard when products, services, standards and legislation are being developed. One initiative we’re working on at present is the ‘National Towing Working Group’. This brings together a wide range of parties with an interest in towing (not just caravans, but horseboxes, boat and car trailers, small commercial trailers etc.) and includes trade associations, police, government agencies and user groups, under overall chairmanship of Highways England. It aims to find ways to make roads safer by reducing the number of towing incidents and breakdowns, initially focusing on the major road network in England (i.e. the ‘Strategic Road Network’), but aiming to extend beyond that in due course. While towing is generally a very safe activity, with very low levels of serious incidents, there are a larger number of minor incidents which put those towing, other road users and those responsible for attending breakdowns etc. at risk of harm. We’d like to see all those incidents, which put you at risk and also risk disrupting your holidays, reduced as far as possible.
The group has identified a long list of initiatives which it could tackle, but needs input from a large number of road users to help prioritise which of those issues matter most to you. We’d really appreciate it if you could take 5-10 minutes to complete the survey below, which will give us much of the information we need to achieve that. This survey is going out to other towing sectors too – let’s make sure we get enough caravanners contributing to make sure your voices are heard! The survey is anonymous – no personal data will be collected from which you can be identified.
Many thanks.
Comments
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emsure everyone towing has weighed their unit (car and caravan) to ensure neither are overweight, very easy with the tiny payloads in many caravans.
i bet many are sticklers for nose weigh but have never weighed the caravan or towing vehicle fully loaded.
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Whilst this is a sensible idea it would be even better if every caravan was issued with a weight certificate when new from the manufacturer with both empty weight and noseweight. Likewise any other trailer. The same should also be applied to motorhomes with overall weight and individual axle weights. The manufacturers are happy to sell their products but unwilling seemingly, to provide this simple information I wonder why?
David
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Hi Rowena
if the Caravan and Motorhome club wants to be proactive you could provide each site with a REICH portable caravan weight control scale.
If this was rented out to members for say £5 per hour you would soon be in profit.
This is a win win situation for all, actions speak louder than words.
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nothing to do with 3500kg or license restictions...
im talking about users exceeding the MTPLM of their sprecific caravan (or tow vehicle).
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but not all caravans/MH weigh the samewhen coming off the production line, and many have dealer fit options addedafter theyve left the factory.
the only way to know the weight of 'your' vehicle fully loaded, is to weigh it......
do you know what yours weighs, fully loaded David?
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BB
Unlike you to make excuses for manufacturers? They are in the best position to give new owners this precise information as outfits come off the production line with or without extras which are easy enough to add on once you have the certified weight.
David
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Rowenna,
What is the involvement of Transport Scotland in this initiative?
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The MH I am considering has a nominal 630Kg payload on a plated weight of 3300Kg. which would seem to be sufficiently generous. I am wondering if it is worth getting it uprated to 3500Kg at the outset just to be on the safe side. The base chassis can go up to 3650Kg. What are the thoughts of you M/Homers?
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The survey is about towing. It covers Highways England roads.
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With the relatively small cost for a set of electronic weight pads I'm sure it would be a simple process for each caravan to be weighed as it came off the production line but it would seem that manufacturers are not keen to do this. I wonder why?
In my own instance I took my new caravan to the local public weighbridge before I put anything in it other than it having a battery and a motor mover fitted, both of which I knew the weight of. From that point I was able to add up everything else that went into the caravan. It has been said that weighbridges are very inaccurate - I don't know, but if this is true how do we accurately check the weight of our caravans?
It would be useful if what is included in a MRO was constant throughout the industry and was limited to the caravan as it came of the line. My caravan MRO doesn't include a battery but does include the EHU cable, 8kg of gas and 10kg of water. Why??
A business idea for caravan service engineers, whether dealer based or mobile, might be for them to offer a weighing option as an addition to the annual service. It might cost us a few pounds extra but I think it would be worth using the option occasionally if not at every service. I guess they would soon get the cost of the weight pads back.
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