Van plate weights and towing

[cheechm]

Hi all,

Looking at getting a 3.5t Citroen van. The max braked towing weight is 3t making the GTW 6.5t. A few questions:

- We'll only be carrying our own goods in the UK. Is a restricted O-licence sufficient?

- Will the van need a tacho fitted?

- Does the plate weight of the van need to be changed? As long as the GTW is written we should be fine right?

- Any driver with a B+E licence is good to drive the van and trailer, right?

- we normally drive lutons. Is there anything I haven't considered?

Cheers

[Ex X Power]

Welcome to a very grey area.... I'll be interested to see other peoples views.

The way I see it if you are just carrying your own goods (hypothetically A race car on the trailer and its spares in the van) and they belong to you, You need neither O licence or tacho.

As far as licence is concerned I passed my driving test in 1997 so had to take a trailer test (B+E) I did this in 2005... I can drive this van.... the only grey area here is some of the newer B+E's ( taken in the last couple of years) there are some different rules here... The licence info is online and easily understandable.

And thats about it, You need do nothing to van, just dont overload it, remember your train is 6.5t but your vans gross is still 3.5t, so you cant fill the van to 6 tons and drag an empty trailer around to be within the train weight (Seen it done before)

[R0G]

For commercial or private use ? - I assume commercial ?

When it is over 3.5 tonnes combined plated weights it will come under EU tacho regs unless an exemption applies

O licence - if only own commercial goods then restricted O licence