Should government mandate towing licences?

COMMENT

Here’s a typical scenario, painfully familiar to many new caravanners…

The man retires from a people-managing role in a trade or business workplace and after realising he can’t impose his authority on his partner at home without a resulting homicide, they decide together to purchase a caravan and tour Australia.

Typically, it will be around 5.5 to 6.0 metres long and weigh between 2.0 and 2.5 tonnes loaded, often badly.

Unless you’re a current or former tradie, or a recreational four-wheel-driver, it will invariably be hitched to a new tow vehicle, such as a medium-sized Prado or perhaps one of a number of crew cab utes on the market, taking your total GCM or rig weight – in many cases – to somewhere between 5.0 and 6.0 tonnes.

Then, with virtually no real-world experience, he sets off with a person he now barely knows to travel up to six or eight hours a day, at speeds up to the legal limit, often on badly-formed roads.

Throw in reduced road grip (rain), visibility (fog or darkness) or attention (via fatigue or perhaps a domestic dispute over directions or travel plans), all of these multiply the risk factors.

A B-Double blasts past; the vacuum between the two vehicles sucks the van towards the truck; the inexperienced driver panics and over-corrects, has a ‘tank-slapper’ and leaves the road. It’s a disaster.

OK, this is a worst case, but still typical scenario. Many couples will embark on such journeys with a background of travelling and living together and sharing driving duties. However with the continuing growth of caravanning as a lifestyle of choice – caravan registrations in Australia are not far off reaching 600,000 – many won’t.

I can imagine the roars of protest from experienced caravanners, as well as those with big trailer boats and horse floats, but I’ve turned a deaf ear to them, because if you fit the typical inexperienced retiree scenario I’ve described above, you’re endangering the life of all road users – including mine!

The idea of endorsed licences for caravanners is not new and has been bandied about for many years. More recently the Caravan Council of Australia has been calling on regulators as well as insurers to make it mandatory for all caravanners to pass a safety training course before hitting the road.

In the UK where towing safety is a bigger government priority, since 2013 those issued with a regular car licence and who want to tow a trailer over 750kg as part of a rig weighing more than 3500kg, have had to pass an additional test.

However according to CIAV CEO Rob Lucas, who took over this hot potato around five years ago, it has had little real support.

It was not unexpected that experienced caravanners and their clubs would view it as an unnecessary and time-wasting impost, but Lucas said he was surprised that the Victorian Government, through VicRoads, was also “cold” on the idea when he broached the subject.

Yet it remains a requisite that road users have an endorsed licence to ride a motorcycle or pilot a heavy truck.

The issue has gone off the boil following the introduction about two years ago of Electronic Stability Control systems from Al-Ko – and now Dexter – that take the ‘wag’ out of caravans created by poor loading, incident avoidance and side winds, but these are band aid measures that only mask the problem that inexperienced drivers in charge of heavy caravan rigs represent.

“They said ‘show us the death statistics that prove that caravanners are a danger to themselves and others’, but this is not the CIAV’s primary role,” said Lucas.

“However I’m sure the problem can be quantified by the caravan repair industry and insurers if required.”

What do you think? Are untrained and inexperienced caravanners a major menace on our roads?