Driving licence restrictions Europe

Flynn_mk2

New Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2016
Messages
8
Location
England
Car(s)
Used to have a Peugeot 306 1.9Dt, now have a bike
Hey guys, what do you think of these driving (driver's) licence (license) restrictions we have:

You can drive vehicles up to 3,500kg GVW with up to 8 passenger seats (with a trailer up to 750kg).

You can also tow heavier trailers if the total GVW of the vehicle and trailer isn?t more than 3,500kg.

These are your restrictions if you pass the car test. You can drive any vehicle with a plated GVW up to 3.5 tons. If it is plated any higher you would have to do the cat C test to drive it, which allows you to drive up to 32 tons rigid or 44 tons articulated. The category C licence test is very expensive (at least ?1k) when you take into account the training and test costs. Few people take category C as a hobby, most of the time it is only done if you want to work in the trucking industry.

Also, you can only tow a trailer if the plated weight of the tow vehicle and trailer combined doesn't exceed 3.5 tons, otherwise you are limited to a 750kg trailer unless you take a special trailer towing test.

I just want to see how ludicrous this seems to Americans who can drive anything up to 12 tons and tow whatever they want to. Some vehicles, like a Ford F350, would no doubt be plated at more than 3.5 tons gross weight and thus would require a category C licence to drive.
 
Last edited:
Every country/state has laws which others from elsewhere find ridiculous. I think we have these limitations about right but I also think that the car test is still absurdly easy and that we don't train car drivers to a high enough standard in the UK.
 
Miffed that I have to take a test for B+E but understand why. Will do it at some point.
 
These are your restrictions if you pass the car test. You can drive any vehicle with a plated GVW up to 3.5 tons. If it is plated any higher you would have to do the cat C test to drive it, which allows you to drive up to 32 tons rigid or 44 tons articulated. The category C licence test is very expensive (at least ?1k) when you take into account the training and test costs. Few people take category C as a hobby, most of the time it is only done if you want to work in the trucking industry.

There's technically also C1(E) if you want more than 3.5t but don't need the full C(E).
 
I just want to see how ludicrous this seems to Americans who can drive anything up to 12 tons and tow whatever they want to.
The thing is: if you trained on a normal car (let's say a Golf, BMW 3-series, Focus, whatever) that doesn't automatically qualify you for driving 12-tonne-trucks since they have totally different driving characteristics.

Fortunately I had my driving test just before the law changed back in 1999 so I'm allowed to drive trucks up to 7.5 tonnes. I drove a 7.5-tonne truck twice in my lifetime (for moving households) and I was extremely cautious because a truck handles massively different to a car (oh, and because my mother's respectively my sister's complete households were in the back :p ). Imagine driving a car all your life, then decide to drive a 10-12 tonne truck...

Oh, and speaking of "ludicrous": what about driving on the wrong (I mean left) side of the road in Britain, but almost nowhere else? What about Autobahns in Germany without a general speed limit? That's ludicrous as well...
 
Every country/state has laws which others from elsewhere find ridiculous. I think we have these limitations about right but I also think that the car test is still absurdly easy and that we don't train car drivers to a high enough standard in the UK.

Go to any non European (but first world) country, Australia, America, New Zealand, Canada, look at their driving tests/standards and then look at ours. It is among the strictest in the world.

There's technically also C1(E) if you want more than 3.5t but don't need the full C(E).

I didn't mention it because it costs exactly the same as full C and is thus pointless, as you allude to by your phrasing.

Fortunately I had my driving test just before the law changed back in 1999 so I'm allowed to drive trucks up to 7.5 tonnes. I drove a 7.5-tonne truck twice in my lifetime (for moving households) and I was extremely cautious because a truck handles massively different to a car (oh, and because my mother's respectively my sister's complete households were in the back ). Imagine driving a car all your life, then decide to drive a 10-12 tonne truck...

7.5 ton was a reasonable limit imhao. It seemed fair, not excessive but not too restrictive either. Cutting it down to 3.5t seems too harsh.

Also, I wasn't aware that Europe had the 7.5t automatic entitlement before 1997 too, I thought it was just the UK that had that.
 
I'm currently taking my C/Class 2, with C+E/Class 1 to follow.
 
Luckily I got my BC license before law changes. It did cost 300 ? more than regular B. I've had use for C like five times in my life, none of those were actually necessary. But still nice to have it. Last autumn I went to driving test for BEC license with a cost under 200 ? to allow me tow anything (that car manufacturer allows) with regular B class vehicle, but still I cannot hook up a caravan behind a Suburban... That would require C1E that would cost around 1500 ?. A bit tempted to do that still though.
 
i got the BE license, so i can drive a 3.5 ton car, with 3.5 ton trailer, as long as both car and trailer is certified for such.

Even just a 3.5 ton van behaves completely differently from a normal car, so i get why they limit it really, i actually think the schools still are a bit too lax...

we get our drivers license at 18, most 18 year olds can't afford a brand new car, like the driving schools have... i got my license in a 2000 Civic, then went to drive a Volvo from 1985 with RWD, the cars weren't even remotely similar to drive, my car didn't even have power steering.

I think the US does it better there, as you take your license in your own car from what i understand.
 
You do take the driving test in your own vehicle. Or in my case, my dad's Chevrolet Suburban.

The thing I don't quite get about the European licenses, how do you get experience driving the larger vehicles to qualify for the higher license levels?

I have a standard license, nothing special and I have legally driven dump trucks (non-airbrake), box trucks, vans, 12,000+ pound combination truck and trailers, etc. All sorts of different vehicles with a basic license. Sure each one has its own characteristics, but it's all basically the same. Four to ten wheels, a steering wheel, and some pedals.

I guess my question is, why restrict a person to only driving a small car?
 
You do take the driving test in your own vehicle. Or in my case, my dad's Chevrolet Suburban.

The thing I don't quite get about the European licenses, how do you get experience driving the larger vehicles to qualify for the higher license levels?

I have a standard license, nothing special and I have legally driven dump trucks (non-airbrake), box trucks, vans, 12,000+ pound combination truck and trailers, etc. All sorts of different vehicles with a basic license. Sure each one has its own characteristics, but it's all basically the same. Four to ten wheels, a steering wheel, and some pedals.

I guess my question is, why restrict a person to only driving a small car?

Because safety.

People can barely drive the small cars, and you want to give them giant trucks? :p

Just like with a normal up to 3.5 ton cars, if you want the next license, you take driving lessons, and learn the specifics of a larger vehicle, when you go over the calss that is a car, and into over 3.5 tons which is basically a truck, you also get lessons in how to secure cargo, and how to drive on ice with something larger than a car, and they make sure you're able to reverse in the larger vehicle.
I'm not sure if the small truck and large truck have the same rules, but when you get a truck/semi license, you have to renew it every 5 years, doign a refresher on the course, to make sure you're still safe in traffic.
 
I'm not sure if the small truck and large truck have the same rules, but when you get a truck/semi license, you have to renew it every 5 years, doign a refresher on the course, to make sure you're still safe in traffic.

At least here that 5-year-rule is just a mechanism to get money for bureaucracy. No tests required, you just need to apply (and pay) for a license. Stupid. Earlier it was valid until you were 75 years. And even before that you had to see the doctor at 45 (?) years and every 5 years after that. It made sense. The current system doesn't.
 
At least here that 5-year-rule is just a mechanism to get money for bureaucracy. No tests required, you just need to apply (and pay) for a license. Stupid. Earlier it was valid until you were 75 years. And even before that you had to see the doctor at 45 (?) years and every 5 years after that. It made sense. The current system doesn't.

Here you actually have to do a whole 3 day course every 5 years, at least for those driving semis in the transport business.
 
Yeah, businesses are different, they have more strict courses. But if you just happen to have C license in private use like me, no courses are needed.
 
That sounds expensive. What really is the difference between paying someone to teach you to drive and, well, just driving? As long as your cautious of course.

Learning from people who know how to do it = safe

Learning on your own = not safe for you and a lot of other people

to brake it down
 
Around here, if you have C or D license, you have to renew your licence every 5 years. No tests, just have to purchase new card. If you only have B-license, you have to renew it every 15 years.

If you drive C1/C/D1/D-class vehicle that is owned by your workplace, you have to have a Driver Certificate of Professional (CPC) (ammattip?tevyys). Doesn't matter what your actual job in that company is or how often you might drive that vehicle, you need cpc to be legally allowed to drive it. You have to renew CPC every 5 years by doing 35 hours of periodic training. When I did that training, about 30 hours were total BS, even the instructors admitted it. There were no tests, just sitting in classroom. Only useful part was the couple of hours of basic first aid training. And that training cost about 700 euros.

If you got your c-class license before 10.9.2009, you only have to get a 35 hour worth of training to get CPC. If you got your license after that date, you need to get basic CPC (140 hours of training, about 4500 euros) and you have to renew it after 5 years (35 hours). No wonder the amount of people getting C-license has dropper dramatically.
 
What really is the difference between paying someone to teach you to drive and, well, just driving? As long as your cautious of course.
At least in Germany cars in driving schools are equipped with pedals in the passenger footwell as well so the instructor can stop the car at any time and there are additional mirrors for the instructor to observe the traffic behind so the risk of a crash is massively reduced.

Additionally, you have to take a certain amount of hours in different driving situations (5 on the highway/4 on the motorway/3 at night for the license for driving a car up to 3.5t) plus normal hours until the instructor deems you safe enough to take the driving test.

The next thing is that you have to take at least 12 classes (90 minutes each) of theoretical lessons and have to write a test about that. Those theoretical classes are "free of charge" or rather you pay for them by taking practical hours.

And, last but not least, many young people in Europe just don't have a car at their disposal.
 
Top