Category B+E is for drivers who would like to be able to tow a trailer with their car. With Category B+E (car & trailer combination), you will be able to drive your car and tow a trailer over 750kg. Being able to tow a trailer with your car using Category B+E has many advantages, as you will be able to tow trailers, caravans, horseboxes, jetskis etc. Trailers provide many advantages that vans offer (ie storage space), yet can be detached, and also require no additional insurance premiums or road tax.
Drivers who passed their driving test on or after 1 January 1997 are required to pass an additional driving test in order to gain entitlement to Category B+E and tow large trailers. The law currently allows drivers with Category B (car licence) to drive vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes MAM (maximum authorised mass) with up to 8 passenger seats. A trailer of up to 750kgs can also be coupled to this, allowing for total combined weight of up to 4.25 tonnes MAM.
Alternatively, Category B drivers are allowed to couple a trailer that weighs over 750kgs MAM providing the MAM of the trailer does not exceed the unladen weight of the towing vehicle, and the total combination does not exceed 3.5 tonnes MAM (Maximum Authorised Mass).
However, drivers who passed their driving test before 1 January 1997, will have automatically gained B+E entitlement through grandfathering rights, and will therefore be able to continue to tow trailers until their current B+E licence expires. This would mean that drivers with who acquired B+E entitlement through grandfathering rights are generally entitled to drive a car and trailer combination up to 8.25 tonnes MAM, as grandfathering rights also permits such drivers to drive any vehiclke up to 7.5 tonnes with a trailer (Category C1+E). That said, if people with grandfathering rights which to use their licences to dervive an income, then they too must sit and pass the equivalent driving test, as grabndfathering rights are only allowed for personal use.
Car & Trailer (Category B+E) Requirements
Car & Trailer Courses In East London
We offer a range of Category B+E training courses to accomadte drivers with different levels of experience. All of our B+E car and trailer courses are provided on a 1-2-1 basis, ensuring that you receive 100% of the instructors attention without the pressure of any iother observers. It is this 1-2-1 trailer training by our fully qualified DSA approved trainiers which leads to our superb first time pass rate. Our training days consist of 4 hours training each day, with all 4 hours being spent by you at the wheel, and not spent with unecessary "coffee breaks" or "lunch breaks" which many other schools use as a tactic to reduce your training time.
Many other schools will offer you an 8 hour training day, which may sound like good value on the face of it, but the 8 hour day is not on a 1-2-1 basis, and the driving time is shared with another pupil, meaning you spend half the time squeezed in a drivers cab waiting for your turn to drive and effectively wasting half your day. The other problem with the 8 hour days provided by other trailer training schools in East London is that many of theses training schools will introduce lunch breaks into this 8 hour day meaning that you are not receiving your full time driving/practicing that you are paying for. The combination of these problems is quite obvious as to why such schools do not have the same extensive pass rate as we pride ourselves on.
Our B+E trailer training courses start off at 20 hours, and are aimed at people who have not recently driven vehicle's with a trailer before. As with all LGV Training courses, the 20 Hour LGV B&E Course has been our most popular and successful course in this category. We also do a 16 hour course for those people who have driven a car & trailer combination before, and for the more confident, also offer a 12 hour course, which is ideally aimed at people who have experience towing trailers previously, possibly in another country.
Your training will be split up into 4 hour sessions provided on a 1-2-1 basis, which will include your practical test on the final day of your course. 4 hours will be allocated on your test day which will include a 2 hour pre-test warm up, 1 and half hours for the test itself, and half an hour transit time back to the depo.
Please remeber when deciding which B+E training course would suit you best, that if you try to select a shorter trailer training course to try to save yourself money, you may not pass your B+E test first time, and may end up spending more money on re-tests than if you selected the most appropriate course for your skill level in the first place. If you are unsure about which car & trailer course would suit you best, then please contact our office where we will be more than happy to listen to the experience you have and help you make an appropriate choice.
As well as offering the very best minibus and trailer training in London, we are probably the cheapest B+E trailer training school in London as well, offering the very best instruction, matched with unrivalled pass rates at unbeatable prices.
Please check our unique online booking system to find out when our next available B+E towing courses are running. We are extremely proud to be the only B+E trailer towing training school in London with a live Online Booking System whcih allows you to check all future course dates so that you can book yourself onto an towing course at a time and date which is convenient for you. The ability we have to allow you to book your minibus course online is also another example of just how far ahead of the other minibus training schools we are, as no other trailer training school school can offer it's clients this fantasic and convenient facility.
If you cannot find the course you would like on our online booking system, then please contact our offces on 020 8597 7333 or 0800 848 8418 and talk to one of the team members who will be more than happy to help you.
TheCategory B+E Test (Towing a trailer with a Car)
The B+E test will be taken in the same vehicle in which you do your training in. The test starts off with the examiner asking you some vehicle safety questions, and is immeadiatly followed by the reversing excercise. You then proceed to spend the next 50 minutes - 1 hour driving on the public road, going over through the test routes you would have practiced during your training. During this time on the road your examiner will assess your ability to interact with other road users along. Upon returning to the test centre, the examiner will ask you to unhitch & then re-hitch your trailer as the final part of your test.
Once you have successfully passed your Category B+E practical test, you will then obtain Category B+E on your driving licence which will entitle you to drive any car or van up to 3.5 tonnes and tow a trailer over 750kg. You will also be autorised to tow a trailer if the MAM of the trailer is greater than the unladen weight of your vehicle.
Car & Trailer Towing (Category B+E) Price List
| Option | Price |
| 20 Hour Course (No experience Towing) |
£999 |
| 16 Hour Course (Some Brief Towing Experience) |
£825 |
| 12 Hour Course (Previous Towing Experience Required) |
£650 |
All courses INCLUDE practical test fee's. (An additional £30 will be charged for any practical test booked on a weekend or out of hours)
