Carryfast:
It all comes down to the wording of the regs as they were written then.
Anyone got a copy of the old HGV regs & laws 
But if what you’ve said there is right then someone could have got the old HGV1 licence by just taking their test on an artic outfit weighing less than 7.5 tonnes which would have looked a right laugh when it’s driver turned up at the test centre with people like me taking ours with a ‘proper’ trailer and a Bedford TM tractor unit?. .Carryfast
I haven’t kept my old original Black HGV licence or the subsequent brown one but remember the no of my first one 00001974
But what you suggest above is exactly what happened.
I started driving artics at 18 for NCL (british railways) . whenn I was 20 and a few months the HGV laws came into effect.
I was issued a class 4 licence under grandfathers rights (this was for driving artics, with the unit weighing less than 2 tons ULW. i.e. scamell scarab, townsman or karrier Bantam) It also , when I was 21 acted as a provisional class 1, I then took my test in a Ford d300 (around 7 tons GVW and just over 2 tons ulw.
I took the same test and got the the same entitlement as somone rolling up in a 40 ft Guy big j.
I have no knowledge of fire engine laws but can assure you that you never needed a HGV licence to drive a car and caravan regardless of weight.
There is a similar confusion today with tachos, in that if you drive a Range Rover (or similar) and tow a caravan that takes your gross weight over the prescribed limit you will need to fit a tachograph…BUT NOT IF YOU ARE USING IT FOR PRIVATE USE.
del949:
But if what you’ve said there is right then someone could have got the old HGV1 licence by just taking their test on an artic outfit weighing less than 7.5 tonnes which would have looked a right laugh when it’s driver turned up at the test centre with people like me taking ours with a ‘proper’ trailer and a Bedford TM tractor unit?. .Carryfast
I haven’t kept my old original Black HGV licence or the subsequent brown one but remember the no of my first one 00001974
But what you suggest above is exactly what happened.I started driving artics at 18 for NCL (british railways) . whenn I was 20 and a few months the HGV laws came into effect.
I was issued a class 4 licence under grandfathers rights (this was for driving artics, with the unit weighing less than 2 tons ULW. i.e. scamell scarab, townsman or karrier Bantam) It also , when I was 21 acted as a provisional class 1, I then took my test in a Ford d300 (around 7 tons GVW and just over 2 tons ulw.
I took the same test and got the the same entitlement as somone rolling up in a 40 ft Guy big j.
I have no knowledge of fire engine laws but can assure you that you never needed a HGV licence to drive a car and caravan regardless of weight.
There is a similar confusion today with tachos, in that if you drive a Range Rover (or similar) and tow a caravan that takes your gross weight over the prescribed limit you will need to fit a tachograph…BUT NOT IF YOU ARE USING IT FOR PRIVATE USE.
With the way the HGV licencing was drafted I would’nt be at all surprised by that idea of someone turning up for the old HGV1 using a tiny unit and semi like you described there and getting class 1 entitlement.It’s like when I told some people that a class 2 also covered a 38 tonne five or six axle wagon and drag they would’nt believe it.But that one concerning the artic licence in which passing the test on that small outfit then it covered you to drive a 38 tonne artic would have been even worse.But surely if passing on a 7 tonne gross combination weight artic outfit would have been good enough for a 1 then passing on a 7.5 tonne rigid would have been good enough for the 3■■.But a 7.5 rigid was then covered by a car licence so there’s no way that anyone could have used a 7.5 tonner to get a class 3 which makes the 7 tonne class 1 idea sound unbelievable?.But the goods vehicle versus private vehicle issue is easier to sort out.There’s no comparison between tacho regs and HGV/LGV licencing regs.It’s possible to drive a non HGV/LGV on a car licence which will need a tacho if it’s over the tacho weight breakpoint and which is used commercially.But it’s also possible to drive a private non commercial vehicle which does’nt need a tacho but which is over the weight breakpoint where it will need an LGV licence to drive it.Which would mean any type of heavy vehicle used for non commercial private purposes.But it probably would’nt be possible to put a load on a Range Rover which would take it over the LGV licence weight breakpoint.But if a 7 tonne GCW tractor unit and semi trailer combination came within the class 1 licencing requirement back in HGV licence days it does’nt seem the case today with the C+E which seems strange as to why the weight breakpoints would’nt have been carried over?.In which case I’d guess that certain types of yank artic motorhomes made up of a big 2 tonne+ pick up and a semi trailer caravan might just have fallen into the class 1/C+E requirement under those regs?.
the two licencing categories were completely different
There was no such thing as 7.5 tonner
Rigid H G Vehicles started at 3.00 tons unladen weight, thus you could drive a small rigid without any HGV, over 3 tons ULW you would need either class 2 or 3 depending on the number of road wheels.
Artics were either class 4 or class 1 , the distinction being wether they were over or under 2 tons ULW.
Gross vehicle weights or number of axles/wheels did not come into the argument at all.
You’ve lost me on your argument re tachos and caravans etc, all I was trying to do in the previous post was to try and clarify that you didn’t need ANY hgv to drive a large car and a large caravan, merely pointing out that in some circumstance you may need to observe rules that are not obviuos owing to the actual use of the vehicle.
2 reasons you did not need a HGV to tow a large caravan with a large car
they are not goods vehicles
they are not articulated but are vehicle and trailer
NB I said HGV (past) not LGV (present)
marcustandy:
scotstrucker:
if its under 7.5t then your safe to drive through a 7.5t weight limit but then again am maybe wrong lolAFAIAA, that is wrong. My point by asking a question I already knew the answer to was that, at times the rules refer to what ‘state’ the vehicle actually is (as in a unit only is Cat C) whereas sometimes the rules refer to what the vehicle is capable of i.e. the GVW of a tractor unit is (usually) up to 44t.
I think it would be better all round if the regulations just followed one method or the other, not both.
a friend of mine got tugged by Traffic Plod in a 7 1/2 tonne weight limit, he was taking a tractor unit in for service (although said tractor unit actually weighs more than 7 1/2 tonne is irrelevant), the plod told my mate that it was not the weight of the vehicle, it is what it is taxed at, and as the unit was taxed at 44 tonne, he could be prosecuted for the offence
shuttlespanker:
a friend of mine got tugged by Traffic Plod in a 7 1/2 tonne weight limit, he was taking a tractor unit in for service (although said tractor unit actually weighs more than 7 1/2 tonne is irrelevant), the plod told my mate that it was not the weight of the vehicle, it is what it is taxed at, and as the unit was taxed at 44 tonne, he could be prosecuted for the offence
The plod was partially right in that he shouldn’t have been there in that unit, but wrong in that for the purposes of weight limits if you’re in a unit without a trailer than it’s the MGW of the unit (probably about 23500kg) and not the GCW (44000kg in this case) that matters.
Paul
del949:
the two licencing categories were completely different
There was no such thing as 7.5 tonner
Rigid H G Vehicles started at 3.00 tons unladen weight, thus you could drive a small rigid without any HGV, over 3 tons ULW you would need either class 2 or 3 depending on the number of road wheels.
Artics were either class 4 or class 1 , the distinction being wether they were over or under 2 tons ULW.
Gross vehicle weights or number of axles/wheels did not come into the argument at all.You’ve lost me on your argument re tachos and caravans etc, all I was trying to do in the previous post was to try and clarify that you didn’t need ANY hgv to drive a large car and a large caravan, merely pointing out that in some circumstance you may need to observe rules that are not obviuos owing to the actual use of the vehicle.
2 reasons you did not need a HGV to tow a large caravan with a large car
they are not goods vehicles
they are not articulated but are vehicle and trailer
NB I said HGV (past) not LGV (present)
You’re right about that unladen weight rule applying to the car licence and HGV licence breakpoint because I was driving the firm’s flatbed dropside D series on my car licence before I’d got my HGV.But just like today we used it’s gross (around 7.5) to differentiate it generally outside of the licencing system from HGV because it always seemed to make more sense than using the actual licencing unladen weights which obviously was the logical way to do it because that’s the breakpoint which they eventually settled on to seperate the two types until recently when even 7.5 is’nt covered by a car licence anymore without grandfather rights.But the regs concerning both HGV and LGV licencing seem to have always been a dogs dinner.With those examples like that 7 ton GCW artic outfit in your example,if it’s correct,being categorised as a class 1 for the purposes of licencing and testing in the same way as a ‘proper’ artic outfit would be.I can’t though understand why every training school did’nt invest in those outfits to get an easier test pass and to save themselves the money of using ‘proper’ ones.I’d also bet that a lot of those drivers who got their licences the easy way on one of those ended up in better jobs than those who had to pass the test the hard way with a real artic 
.But whatever I’d still say that we could’nt drive a solo tractor unit on a rigid licence under HGV rules and it’s weight which determines wether or not an HGV or an LGV licence is needed to drive a vehicle not wether it’s running privately or commercially and wether it’s a ‘goods vehicle’ or any other type?.
every training school did’nt invest in those outfits to get an easier test pass and to save themselves the money of using ‘proper’ ones.
in the early days of HGV there were not a lot of HGV driving schools about.
Small one man training outfits tended to buy second hand rather than new ones and generally finished up with something like a Bedford KM with a 28 ft single axle trailer.
Large companies tended to have their own driver training schools and used whatever vehicles they had on the fleet.
But is it different on the test now? Do you have to use a full size artic for a C+E and if not are you restricted to the size you take it in?
Long time since I have had anything to do with tests etc but I imagine that you can still take a C+E in a small artic and then go on to drive a 44 tonner.
I am not defending the system but guessing that it hasn’t really changed in that respect since I took my test the easy way without driving a real artic 
Incidentally, for anyone who thinks that driving the little 3 wheeler was easy believe me if you could reverse those you could reverse anything 'cos you needed to be very very quick to follow round.
del949:
But is it different on the test now? Do you have to use a full size artic for a C+E and if not are you restricted to the size you take it in?
Long time since I have had anything to do with tests etc but I imagine that you can still take a C+E in a small artic and then go on to drive a 44 tonner.
There are minimum and maximum requirements for test vehicles
del949:
every training school did’nt invest in those outfits to get an easier test pass and to save themselves the money of using ‘proper’ ones.
in the early days of HGV there were not a lot of HGV driving schools about.
Small one man training outfits tended to buy second hand rather than new ones and generally finished up with something like a Bedford KM with a 28 ft single axle trailer.
Large companies tended to have their own driver training schools and used whatever vehicles they had on the fleet.But is it different on the test now? Do you have to use a full size artic for a C+E and if not are you restricted to the size you take it in?
Long time since I have had anything to do with tests etc but I imagine that you can still take a C+E in a small artic and then go on to drive a 44 tonner.
I am not defending the system but guessing that it hasn’t really changed in that respect since I took my test the easy way without driving a real artic
If the previous discussions on here are correct the regs now don’t differentiate between artic or wagon and drag/close coupled caravan type trailer.So C+E now covers the old class 1 but you can now get it just by taking the test on a class C and a trailer which from the point of view of a new driver who’s just passed his test on a caravan/close coupled design wagon and drag and then finds himself employed by the agency to drive a 44 tonne GCW artic or A frame drawbar outfit outfit seems a joke.However I’d say that the example wich you gave of a 7 tonne gross artic outfit might now come under the modern C1+E ?.But as for reversing the tiny artics in your examples giving you an idea of reversing ‘anything’ no chance unless you’re saying that it was more difficult than an A frame wagon and drag??.I would though have liked to get the chance to reverse a doubles artic and A frame drawbar trailer and a doubles drawbar outfit but I’d have needed to be in Australia or Canada to have got that chance not here.
Sorry Carryfast, I thought it was obvious that I was referring to driving artics, not wag’n’drags, double b’s, road trains, appollo rockets or the Queen Mary 2.
My mistake 
del949:
Sorry Carryfast, I thought it was obvious that I was referring to driving artics, not wag’n’drags, double b’s, road trains, appollo rockets or the Queen Mary 2.
My mistake
No I did’nt mean that class 1,which was given to anyone who passed a test on that 2+ ton unit/7 ton GCW artic combination,would cover them to drive a Saturn 5,the QE2 as it would have been then,or an Ozzy road train,either.But it would have covered that driver to drive a 38 tonne wagon and drag just like a class 3 or a class 2 would have done depending on the configuration and you did say ‘anything’. Anyway under today’s regs even a C1+E probably would’nt be needed for it so that just leaves a car licence like you’d need to drive that yank artic motorhome outfit??. 
and unlike back then (if I’ve remebered the old regs right) you could also drive that yank pick up on the same car licence when it’s running solo .I think I’m getting the hang of this new world which we’re in now
The modern system firstly goes on the weight - either actual weight which is superceded by gross weight (GVW plated) or if more than 9 seats (including the drivers seat) it becomes a PCV
Examples -
any vehicle that actually weighs less than 3.5 tonnes = cat B
any vehicle that actually weighs less than 3.5 tonnes but is plated over 3.5 but under 7.5 = cat C1
any vehicle that actually weighs over 3.5 but less than 7.5 tonnes = cat C1
any vehicle that actually weighs over 3.5 but less than 7.5 tonnes but is plated over 7.5= cat C
any vehicle that actually weighs over 7.5 = cat C
think i got that right 
ROG:
The modern system firstly goes on the weight - either actual weight which is superceded by gross weight (GVW plated) or if more than 9 seats (including the drivers seat) it becomes a PCVExamples -
any vehicle that actually weighs less than 3.5 tonnes = cat B
any vehicle that actually weighs less than 3.5 tonnes but is plated over 3.5 but under 7.5 = cat C1
any vehicle that actually weighs over 3.5 but less than 7.5 tonnes = cat C1
any vehicle that actually weighs over 3.5 but less than 7.5 tonnes but is plated over 7.5= cat C
any vehicle that actually weighs over 7.5 = cat Cthink i got that right
I think I might also have got it right that they were handing out HGV class 1 licences for passing a test on what would be a B+E vehicle under today’s regs?? .Unless that is that tractor unit was plated over 3.5T but under 7.5T??.In which case it was’nt so bad because at least they were handing out class 1’s for passing on a C1+E .But seriously I think that the HGV regs might have changed in 1980 by EU directive which did away with Class 4 and maybe there were sub divisions for class 1 for those small artics and that was also when the 7.5 plated gross HGV breakpoint came in??.But you still could’nt drive an artic tractor unit solo without a class 1 lcence until the LGV regs came in??.I think I might have got at least some of that right?.(Hopefully)