Truck & Driver magazine gets frequent letters from readers complaining about caravanners - but surely not every truck driver hates them do they? We thought we’d explore the subject for a feature in the magazine next year - and could really do with your help.
Exactly why are they so unpopular? Surely it’s not just because they take the parking spaces at MSAs?
With 490,000 caravans in the UK, presumably some of them must be owned by HGV licence holders?
Have you got any suggestions as to how caravanners could become more popular with truck drivers?
I’m looking forward to hearing your comments.
When I was on the road I never hated them - just another potential hazard to be safely dealt with.
I still feel the same way about them and every other road user.
having owned several caravans through the years i am personally not against them persay, but i am against the people that think they can tow them. 
the number has grown year on year, it sits in storage all year until they are ready for their holiday, the numpty hitches it up and away they go with no clue how to load it or even drive it. most of them cant drive their cars safely let alone putting 14’ plus on the back.
i know new drivers have to take a test now to tow but i personally think everyone should have to take some form of formal training, before being let loose 
i will put my head down and wait for the flack 
I don’t hate them, although I do think some of the caravan drivers should be lined up and shot, others are fine. The big problem is that there is no standard they have to achieve before they get their caravan hitched up and drive away. Some of our wonderful older generation are then happily creeping along at 20 mph, taking up so much width because they think they are 20 foot wide, stopping dead every time they have to pass a parked car, etc, etc.
I do feel that everyone should be tested to see that they are capable of towing without being a nuisance to other road users and although I know the younger drivers need to do some form of test to tow or drive a 7.5 tonner, I don’t know what this test involves. Does anyone on here?
Myth, some dodos but I find most are ok
I don’t own one but when I get stuck behind one on a single carriageway in my truck it frustrates me because they seem to drive along without a care in the word esp on road’s which you cant overtake safetly in a truck.
More often than not they don’t even do the 40mph we can (legally) do. If they did the speeds they are allowed (50 mph) then it would not be so bad but when you got as job to get on with the last thing you want is to be stuck behind “cautious carl”
And even off the single carriageway they still cause misery for thousands of motorists, every year from about June — September onwards it seems nearly every traffic bulletin ‘sally traffic’ mentions.
“The M5 is closed due to a caravan jack knifing on the motorway…queues go back for 15 miles”
And the best one……
“The m5 is closed due to a caravan suffering a blow out/loosing a wheel…queues back for 30 miles”
some must put the caravan in storage in the winter and take it out in the summer without ihaving it serviced or checking everything works.
Rant over
puts on helmet and flak jacket and puts one foot in door of the TNUK post-fallout shelter.
The caravan club do have a test that can be taken but it is not compulsory.
What is worse is this -
A ‘B’ (not ‘B+E’) licence holder can legally tow up to a combination weight of 3.5 tonnes by only passing the standard car test - example 2 tonne car towing 1.5 tonne caravan - this could be a newly passed 17 year old !!
WHAT YOU CAN TOW ON A CAR LICENCE
Towing caravans
As for towing caravans, existing general guidance recommends that the laden weight of the caravan does not exceed 85% of the unladen weight of the car. In the majority of cases, caravans and small trailers towed by cars should be within the new category B threshold.
Only two things about them annoy me. One you’ve mentioned already Will, parking in truck bays. When you pull in to a MSA needing to take your 45 and there they are parked up. To be fair to them very few will understand why these spaces NEED to be reserved for trucks so perhaps the caravan club could educate them on that point. Mind you, I don’t think you can educate the next group that annoy me and that’s the numpties who think it’s ok to tow a van without proper mirrors! They can’t see behind them so they’re not safe.
Just tow the ■■■■■■■ thing faster than I am going and I will be happy.
I would find it hard to as i own a caravan and most of my fellow drivers also tow caravans! although i do agree there are some that do need a few pointers but there are also some hgv drivers that could do with some pointers!!
Don’t hate caravanners per se, the ones I have a problem with are the ones who’ve just read Caravanner Weekly which tells them their optimum economical speed is 59mph. They then set off with their badly calibrated speedos doing a “real” 54mph. Then as they spot you creeping past them they realise that the other 51 weeks of the year they tear along in the outside lane with all their foglights on only briefly crossing lanes 1 and 2 as they enter or exit the motorway and accelerate away inside you. If you do manage to overtake one of these frontiersman after a 15 minute attempt he then repasses you and again slows down a mile further up the road 
So no, I love them actually. 
I transport them (carrying one and towing one) what category does that put me in?
dean0:
I transport them (carrying one and towing one) what category does that put me in?
Double agent methinks 
my mum and dad have just bought a camper van and i think thats brilliant, when i was truckfest last year a member on here called alix766 had a blinding caravan with a double bedroom in. as soon as kids leave home/older im getting one.
As an ex trucker and an ex caravanner I can see both points of view, and there are good and bad in both camps. In my view part of the problem is that, unlike lorry drivers, most caravanners have not had any formal training in either towing or in loading correctly, although the Caravan Club does do a voluntary towing course. In many cases, I think the frustrations of lorry drivers is caused by the caravanners not using their mirrors properly to read the road behind them as well as ahead, resulting in long tailbacks. If there were two or more lorries behind us on single carriageways, as soon as practical we pulled into a layby to let them pass, to a lorry driver, time is money! Many caravans have been standing for a long time which causes uneven wear on tyres, and they have not been checked before starting the journey.Some of the accidents on motorways are a result of the caravan being caught in a lorry’s slip stream, which ‘makes the tail wag the dog’ , If I saw a lorry about to overtake I would pull over slightly towards the hard shoulder and this minimises the pull of the larger vehicle. Having said that, I think the majority of accidents (and holdups) are caused by incorrectly loaded caravans, being driven at excess speed by drivers who are inexperienced in towing. Perhaps the new rule whereby anyone who has only recently passed their driving test has to be trained in towing will go some way to improving the situation. It is interesting that the lorry driver’s ‘bosom friend’ VOSA, are now also checking motorhomes and caravans for incorrect loading, axle weights, etc.
DoYouMeanMe?:
I don’t hate them, although I do think some of the caravan drivers should be lined up and shot, others are fine. The big problem is that there is no standard they have to achieve before they get their caravan hitched up and drive away. Some of our wonderful older generation are then happily creeping along at 20 mph, taking up so much width because they think they are 20 foot wide, stopping dead every time they have to pass a parked car, etc, etc.
I do feel that everyone should be tested to see that they are capable of towing without being a nuisance to other road users and although I know the younger drivers need to do some form of test to tow or drive a 7.5 tonner, I don’t know what this test involves. Does anyone on here?
The towing test is much like our class 1 test, normally in the same test centre!!
Start with a reverse then to a e/stop and out on the road for a short while (not sure of the duration?) and I think but not sure they do the coupling at the beginning not the end?
ive had a caravan and now a motorhome and they have never bothered me whilst im driving a truck.
it is annoying when they park in the truck bays at the services especially when there are proper areas for caravans but then again there are plenty of trucks that park in the caravan areas throughout the winter.
easiest way to get the caravans to shift out the lorry park.
knock on the door and ask for a bacon butty and a mug of tea. 
or do you mind if i use the loo.
I hate them. I spend a lot of time doing a Cornwall run in the summer and frequently come up against:
Parking in the truck bays at MSA’s
Under powered cars towing huge caravans
Drivers inexperienced with towing
Badly loaded caravans
Our yard is situated just off the M5 J19 and the motorways round here just can’t cope.
MSA’s are quick enough to clamp trucks who park in coach bays but why not caravans who park in truck bays. Why is this?
I just hate everyone 
But seriously, there should be something like a CBT for them, a couple of hours in an off road area and then 2 hours on the roads
john_costigan:
MSA’s are quick enough to clamp trucks who park in coach bays but why not caravans who park in truck bays. Why is this?
Because the caravanner would wheel out his 94 year old grandmother with ■■■■ dripping from her chair and claim Human Rights, how can the same caravanners park in the lorry park, drop their legs and cook a meal in full view of the signs saying that gas cookers can not be used. 