Should caravan owners be forced to qualify for a separate licence?
Many Australians’ reaction to the international travel lockdowns for COVID was to buy caravans and motorhomes in droves.
However, are enough of those new owners qualified to drive their new purchases, and should they have to pass another driving test?
Tony Maddison, director of towing technology company WiTi, told the Courier Mail that overweight and unstable caravans were a big problem for safety on Australian roads.
Crazy
“In most cases, drivers only need their car licence and they can hitch up three tonnes or more of caravan and take it out on the roads with no training whatsoever … which is just crazy,” he said.
Joel Tucker, RACQ’s road safety manager, said the body supported “a closer examination” of the contributing factors of caravan crashes in Queensland.
“At our RACQ caravan training courses we find about 50 per cent of caravans are overweight, which is both illegal and unsafe,” he said.
According to Caravancampingsales, 28,301 recreational vehicles were built in Australia during 2022, up 17.1 per cent from the previous year and the highest figure since the 1970s.
The number of imported RVs entering the country also rose by more than 8 per cent year on year, to 20,498. The combined total of almost 50,000 RVs entering the market that year is claimed to be the highest on record.
That’s great for local manufacturers and grey nomads hitting the road, but the downside is inexperienced drivers are being involved in more accidents.
It only takes a quick online search to find several fatal and non-fatal RV accidents, almost all of them involving older Australians.
Safety skills
However, Queensland’s University of Technology, Natalie Watson-Brown, told Yahoo News: “The skills that make you a safer driver are not necessarily your vehicle control skills.
“I guess that’s where everyone’s going with the people who tow caravans, that potentially they need to upskill in their ability to tow the caravan,” she said.
“That would be one component of it, but we talk about other skills that contribute to road crashes. Maybe it’s an attitude change, so maybe it’s having an awareness and understanding of things like they do on a long drive, so maybe they need to understand more about fatigue and how that affects the way that they’re driving, or maybe they need to self regulate.”
Do you think caravan drivers should qualify for a separate licence? Would you be happy to take the test? Why not share your opinion in the comments section below?
Also read: Make a plan for your caravan