Towing Dollies

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Banshee

Banshee

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Can't remember who said it on here recently about dollies being illegal and can't find the thread via a search but I saw an AA van last night with a towbar attached dolly with nothing else at all apart from light board electrics attached :nenau

He was just about to pull off with a Renault Scenic in tow that had lost a lot of it's fuel judging by the tarmac.

I asked the AA man if he needed any additional driving certs to use that and what the legality of them was and he said they were 100% legal and he'd been using them for about 6 years now, he said I wasn't the first to ask him about the legalities of them either, must be some online myth about them being illegal :nenau
 
I would guess the legality issue revolves around the load on the back being without brakes over a certain weight.

Technically the vehicle becomes a trailer when hitched.
 
towing dollies need to be braked as far as i am aware due to the load exceeding 750kg i have towed a terrano on a unbraked one but was a bit scary if you had to brake hard and tend to use small wheels my last braked one was a ex rac one on 13" wheel and was realy low to load this made a big difference keeping the load as low as possable this is my prefered type a A frame and of course driving them responsable makes them safer :thumb2
 
RJL Services said:
towing dollies need to be braked as far as i am aware due to the load exceeding 750kg i have towed a terrano on a unbraked one but was a bit scary if you had to brake hard and tend to use small wheels my last braked one was a ex rac one on 13" wheel and was realy low to load this made a big difference keeping the load as low as possable this is my prefered type a A frame and of course driving them responsable makes them safer :thumb2
Click to expand...

His was also on 13" wheels and wasn't braked, just checked the gross weight of a Scenic and it's 1395kg :nenau

Only rear wheels were in contact with the road, what gives :nenau
 
They can be used for recovery of a broken down vehicle, but not for just moving vehicles. E.g towing a car behind a motor home, or taking a 4x4 to pay and play days. As already said, once you put the front or rear wheels of a car on one, it in effect becomes a 4 wheel trailer, and any braked trailer must break on all of its wheels, but in the case of most dollys, only the front wheels, ie the dolly ones, would be braked, making it an illegal trailer..

Sent from my SM-T705 using Tapatalk
 
my understanding is that dollies should have wheels outside of the vehicle their carrying.

ie so the old tall ones with a twin wheel arrangement under the car are illegal.

by having wheels outside track of car the car is lower, better cog and stability.


many AA vans have a special tow bar, look for a red box covering it, then the dolly is carried
in the rear of the van and comes out on a rack and pulley system, quite a bit of kit.

did think these were braked so guessed left only rear of car on road unbraked, though as
said a rescue is not the same as bringing a car home from an auction etc.
 
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