Don't tow

kenspain

Free Member

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347
My son has this weekend been on Motorway Duty with his sergeant , and hates it. They stopped a English reg motorhome towing a car the sergeant told him to deal with it because he knows he speaks English they pulled the van over and my son went to talk to the driver he told the owner that A frames are not allowed and you can't tow a car with the four wheels on the ground he told them to unhook the car and let your wife follow you but his wife did not drive so he had to get a Grua / breakdown van to transport it of the motorway, the sergeant got out the car a walk over ask my son what he has done I have ordered a Grua to transport the car of the motorway and gave the driver a Warning and not to tow the car on an A, Frame in Spain that did not go down well with the Sargent told my son to wright him a ticket for 100 euros fine the poor man now has to pay to get the car of the motorway that could cost him 150 euros , When they got back to the station my son got a bollocking from the Sargent
:(:(
 
He is a right Barsteward more officers have ask to be moved from him than any other station but he as only got 5 months before he retires
 
There are so many people willing to break the law and has probably being doing so for some time, and getting away with it, I have seen it on many forums when people have asked about using A frames, people saying they have being doing it for years without any problems, but they still know they are breaking the law.
Even if they don’t know if they are breaking the law, it is no excuse, there is plenty information on the internet
 
He’ll probably get plugged the day before he retires if any Hollywood movie is anything to go by.?
 
SimonM said:
I Positively hate to see A framed little cars being dragged along behind motorhomes- get a car and caravan! Either that or tow a proper trailer.
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I tow a car behind me (UK only, perfectly legal) because I want to, it has nothing to do with you or anyone else who thinks like you if I don't want a car and caravan and don't want the hassle of storing a trailer, it is comments like this that makes me want to take a break from forums, too many complaints about how others behave?
 
Think I’ll just tow my car to annoy these people even when I don’t need it I’m still gonna tow just because I can?
 
Seems to me that towing a little car behind a big motorhome is far better than towing a big caravan behind a car. A caravan can be up to 80% of weight of the towing car and is probably often more than this when loaded. Whereas a toad will probably be about 30% of the weight of a towing motorhome. I have more than once seen caravans weaving about behind a car at speed and more than once seen the debris of a caravan after turning over. Anyone ever heard of a toad overturning?
 
kenspain said:
If my post upsets someone when I try to help or advice then please let me know I can easily stop posting
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Your posts are very informative Ken and would not upset me at all, you are quite rightly pointing out warnings about the use of A frames in Spain, I last used one there in 2008 and got pulled near La Marina but after arguing the legitimacy of it I was allowed to continue, but if they had fined me or told me not to continue I would have accepted it, their Country, their rules

My post was not aimed at you

***** said:
To be honest, the warnings about using an A Frame have been around for quite a while and I expect anybody who has one knows, therefore, if they get pulled and fined, they only have themselves to blame.
Basically, they are just running the gauntlet in some Countries such as Spain and it is a matter of luck or no luck if they get pulled.
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I don't tow anywhere other than the UK now, two reasons
1. it is illegal in most of Europe even if tolerated in parts of it
2. we don't stop in one place long enough to use a car

anyone that does use an A frame in Spain deserves a fine in my opinion
 
In the UK we have the position that, if it is not directly illegal then you can do it, on the Continent they have Napoleonic law which means that UNLESS it is directly allowed then it is illegal. This applies to all thing not just towing a toad. The spanish law does not specifically allow it ,therefore it is illegal.
We will have to follow that code if we are stil in the EU in the end, when we would have to comply with everything.
 
My moho doesn't have a towbar, so I'm not about to tow anytime soon. That said, I understood that if a vehicle (or combination) was lawful in the EU member state in which it was registered, then it was lawful in all member states; vis:
Provided a vehicle complies with the Construction and Use Regulations in its country of registration, no modifications have to be made when the vehicle or vehicle/trailer combination is subsequently temporarily imported into another member country
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This is the reason why Dutch and German caravanners could legally tow 2.5m wide units behand cars when the UK limit was 2.3m. When this topic came up on another forum several years ago, there was mixed opinion as for some purposes a car on an A-frame can be considered to be two trailers. However, at least one company (Car-A-Tow) is confident enough that a car towed with its A-frame is legal throughout the EU and their website contains links for a Travel Document that users can employ to assert it legallity and also evidence of the Spanish Authorities accepting that the system is legal in at least one case (AFAICT, but perhaps Ken can confirm as I don't read Spanish!)
 
GeoffL said:
My moho doesn't have a towbar, so I'm not about to tow anytime soon. That said, I understood that if a vehicle (or combination) was lawful in the EU member state in which it was registered, then it was lawful in all member states; . However, at least one company (Car-A-Tow) is confident enough that a car towed with its A-frame is legal throughout the EU and their website contains links for a Travel Document that users can employ to assert it legallity and also evidence of the Spanish Authorities accepting that the system is legal in at least one case (AFAICT, but perhaps Ken can confirm as I don't read Spanish!)
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I have the documentation from Car-A-Tow printed in different languages showing the ruling that if it is legal in the member state that the vehicle is registered in it is legal in all states for a temporary visit.
The case in Spain was where someone was stopped and fined but he appealed and took the case to the European Parliament and they helped him win, because of this we could carry on using A frames for a long time, this was the documentation I showed the Police who stopped me, it worked in 2008 but it wouldn't work now unless someone is brave enough to appeal and take it as far as the previous case.
I decide if they don't want me to tow my car there then I wouldn't

edit
these are the documents available on the Car-A-Tow website www.caratow.com/download.php

www.caratow.com/docs/documentation.pdf
www.caratow.com/docs/english.pdf
 
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Tezza33 said:
it worked in 2008
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I think there have been changes since then, including new rules about certification of trailers and tow bars.

GWAYGWAY said:
We will have to follow that code if we are stil in the EU in the end, when we would have to comply with everything.
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Some of these issues are covered by The Vienna Convention On Road Traffic, which we (UK) have not yet ratified. If we leave the EU without an agreement we might have to ratify it in a hurry and that could bring about compliance even sooner.
 
Okta said:
I think there have been changes since then, including new rules about certification of trailers and tow bars.
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There have been new rules but it confirmed that the UK still classes a car on an A frame as a trailer,
www.gov.uk

A-frames

www.gov.uk www.gov.uk
It doesn't help if you want to tow in Europe though
 
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