CARAVAN CLUB TOWING COURSE

It's a brave or foolish individual who ventures out onto the road with a caravan on tow and no experience or training in how to handle one safely. Common sense dictates that attaching more than 1,000kg of caravan to the back of a car is going to have serious repercussions on the way the vehicle handles and performs. Then you've got the age-old problem of parking and manoeuvring your van around campsites and onto pitches. To the inexperienced tower with no clue as to the correct way to go about things, a tight parking space can represent an accident waiting to happen. Yes, towing a caravan successfully is not as straightforward as you might suspect and before you hit the highways or the byways, some sort of caravan towing course has got to be a sensible idea.

Fortunately, the Caravan Club run just such a thing on a regular basis at their 16 training locations around the country. Large numbers of prospective owners have taken part in the events and the Club reckon their courses have imparted the basics of practical caravanning to over 40,000 individuals since 1978 - just imagine getting stuck behind that lot on the M5.

In all seriousness, caravans and caravaners often receive a bad press that they simply do not deserve. Research by the Highways Agency and other bodies has shown that caravans are rarely to blame for long motorway tailbacks in holiday periods with poor lane discipline by car drivers in lanes two and three being a far more common cause. Many car drivers will point to the issue of slow-moving caravans blocking minor country roads but a properly matched caravan and towcar combination should be more than capable of maintaining a respectable speed and caravaners are advised to regularly pull over and let faster moving traffic through. Typically, far less than 1% of road accidents in the UK involve caravans and enhancing the image of caravanning through safe, courteous towing is a key part of the Caravan Club courses.

The courses are open to caravan club members and non-members alike and they are very popular so you may have a short wait before you can get on one. Once you've got your certificate, however, you'll feel far more confident with your caravan on tow. After you book yourself onto a course, the Caravan Club will send you a course handbook entitled Practical Caravannin...