What licence for wrecker?
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We have two Ford Cargo recovery vehicles fitted with slide-back bodies and spectacle lifts. Each has a gross vehicle weight of 7.49 tonnes.
Can they be driven on a full ordinary driving licence?
One police force says that as soon as a vehicle is carried on a spectacle frame an HGV licence is needed. Another says that a vehicle can be carried as long as the gross weight does not exceed 7.5 tonnes.
Are these vehicles too small to take the HGV test in?
A Since the breakdown vehicles described are constructed to carry goods (in the form of broken-down vehicles) and their plated
gross weight appears to be 7.49 tonnes, they come within category Cl of the driving licence categories.
An old group A licence and a new category B licence authorises the driving of category Cl.
When a trailer over the 750kg permissible maximum weight is towed by a category Cl vehicle the combination becomes category Ci+E. That category can also be driven by the holder of a group A or category B licence.
There is no weight limit attached to a category Cl+E combination, so even if it exceeds 7.5 tonnes — and thereby comes within the definition of a large goods vehicle — no other licence is required.
Before the change in HGV/LGV law on 1 April, a separate HGV licence would have been needed for a combination over 7.5 tonnes. But, because the separate licence has been dropped and an LGV licence is now simply an ordinary licence which relates to the class of vehicle being driven, a category Cl+E Licence is all that is needed for the 7.5-tonne truck and trailer outfit.
The inconsistency between the new law and the old is one of the loopholes to which attention has been drawn in Commercial Motor (27 June-3 July).
These vehicles cannot be used for taking an LGV driving test.