Towing a trailer: how to drive it, speed, permitted weight and dimensions

Popular passenger car width standards

Most often, if people live in multi-storey buildings, they buy a place in a garage cooperative nearby. But it also happens that you need to design and build a garage space yourself, especially in your own home.

It should be ideal for the car, especially if there is not one, but 2 or 3 cars in the house.

In order for a garage space to be suitable and versatile, you need to know the parameters of the future cars for which the garage is being built. Whatever the car, it always needs its own place to protect it from theft, natural disasters, icing, hypothermia, overheating, etc.

Let's consider the approximate sizes of various categories of the automotive industry:

Class A cars. This includes representatives of Matiz, which are excellent for maneuvering even in the narrowest alleys and streets of large populated areas. As a rule, their width does not exceed 1.5 m.
Class B cars - this, as a rule, includes almost all popular models, for example, Skoda Fabia, Nissan Micra, Ford Fiesta, Opel Astra. The body width of such cars varies from 1.6 to 1.8. Everything will depend on the model, the placement of mirrors and even the year of manufacture of a particular brand.
Representatives of class C. One of the most popular representatives of this class is the Volkswagen Golf. Its body, on average, is 2.05 m wide.
Cars belonging to class D are distinguished by greater capacity, both in the body and in the trunk, which is important for people who travel a lot in their car. The body in this case reaches 2.08 m in width.
Cars belonging to the E class are representatives of the so-called executive segment.
Class F includes long cars belonging to the passenger segment. This includes the famous Rolls-Royce.

It should also be noted that domestic cars are more permanent in this regard, even after improvement, they do not change their dimensions. In addition, there are large trucks, as well as small family minibuses, which may also require a garage at a private home. The dimensions of such a car will also depend on the model and manufacturer.

Standards for trailer weights and dimensions for passenger cars

General permissible dimensions:

up to 12 meters - trailer length;
up to 2.55 meters - width;
up to 4 meters - height.

The maximum length of the entire road train (vehicle and trailer together) is up to 18.35 meters.

According to GOST 37.001. 220-80 trailer size for a passenger car must correspond to the following indicators:

the entire structure should not weigh more than the vehicle with which it is transported, more than the permitted weight determined by the vehicle manufacturer, and exceed 1 ton 800 kg;
if the trailer is without brakes, then its weight should not exceed that permitted by the manufacturer of the tractor and 50% of its curb weight.

It also determines the permitted dimensions of a trailer for passenger cars:

the length is limited to one and a half length of the traction vehicle or no more than 8 meters;
the width should not be more than 200 mm from the edge of the car on both sides; maximum width is limited to 2.3 meters;
in height - no more than 1.8 times the track width of the towbar or no more than 3 meters.

Light trailers weighing up to 750 kg may not have brakes.

Determining the height and length of a passenger car

As already mentioned, currently on our streets you can find cars of all models of manufacturers, as well as completely different sizes, ranging from a small Matiz model to bulky trucks.

The more cars there are on the roads and in yards, the more acute the question arises that motorists need to leave their car somewhere overnight.

Many motorists who buy their first car practically do not pay attention to what dimensions are typical for a particular car model; they are more concerned about the price.

And yet, if you are choosing a car for the first time, pay special attention to such dimensions as:

Height . This indicator will determine whether the car will fit into your garage. Sometimes, when the width is right, the car still cannot end up in the garage, because the roof rests on the top beam.
Length . Often, motorists are faced with the fact that a brand new car they bought does not fit into the garage, turning out to be longer than its “home”. This often happens when you buy a car from category F.
Width . The most popular indicator when choosing a car. It determines how nimble the car will be and whether it can park in a small space between 2 other cars.

Thus, you can understand that it is necessary to take into account all these 3 indicators so that the car fits completely inside the garage, leaving the driver space to maneuver and repair the car.

EUROTENT (FURA)

“Eurotent” is a conventional concept denoting a truck with a semi-trailer having overall dimensions close to the specified characteristics.
The truck, as the Euro tent is otherwise called, can accommodate 2 Euro pallets, each 120 cm long, placed across them. Overall dimensions of the Eurotent:

Length: 13.6 m;
Width: 2.45 m;
Height: 2.45 m;
Volume: 82 m3;
Load capacity: 20 - 22 tons;

There are a large number of modifications of semi-trailers, among which there are semi-trailers with a volume of 76-78 m3 - with a shorter length (12.5 - 13 m) and semi-trailers with a standard or longer length, width and height (13.6 - 15 m; 2 .5 m; 2.7 m).
The design of the semi-trailer allows you to remove the awning and thereby makes it possible to load/unload from the side or from above. In addition, a semi-trailer without an awning allows the semi-trailer to be used as an open platform with a side height of 35 to 50 cm.

What is the average width of a car?

It is necessary to know the average width of a passenger car; both experienced motorists and automotive industry specialists talk about this.

To correctly calculate the average width, you need:

Know how many meters the car will occupy with the doors open. Doors can be of different lengths, depending on the model. Therefore, when building or choosing a garage space, you definitely need to know how many meters the car will occupy in width with all doors open.
It is necessary to leave an additional 1-2 m so that the driver and passengers can easily get into and out of the car.
If the opportunity to make a long garage near a private house is limited, then an additional 0.5-1 m for shelves or racks should also be added to the calculation of the width. They are always necessary in a functioning garage. Even if the car will only “spend the night”.

If you decide to build a garage yourself or make a full-fledged extension for this, you need to take into account all the dimensions, the necessary additional meters, etc. In addition, if you need to build a garage for a minibus, you must also take into account its height

It will be larger than the average passenger car.

Before building a garage for one or more cars, you should draw up and draw a plan for the future premises, taking into account all additional and basic parameters, as well as the dimensions of the entrance gate and, if necessary, a gate.

Features of driving with a trailer

When traveling with a trailer, the driver must have three documents with him:

a driver's license of the required category or a temporary permit to drive a vehicle;
registration documents for the car and trailer;
MTPL policy for cars (trailer insurance is not provided for by law in accordance with clause D, part 3, article 4 of Federal Law No. 40 “On compulsory civil liability insurance,” but a corresponding note is made in the policy).

The current version of the traffic rules indicates the permitted speed for driving with a trailer: up to 90 km/h when driving on highways, within 70 km/h when driving on other types of roads. These requirements are reflected in clause 10.3 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation “On Traffic Rules” dated October 23, 1993.

Dimensions of a garage for 1 car: optimal parameters

As a rule, most families in our country have one car, so most often motorists wonder what the optimal standard dimensions of the garage and car to take as a basis in order to build the most convenient garage.

What indicators should a garage meet:

Place the car so that you can move around it without problems and have access to its bottom.
The ceiling must be high so that it is possible to work with the roof of the car, for example, to install additional space on it for transporting things, bicycles, etc. In addition, the height of the garage can be important for convenient washing of the car.
Strict consideration should be given to all necessary work surfaces and shelving, cabinets, tool racks, for any work to straighten small dents or to replace supplied vehicle parts.
You should also take into account the presence of a repair hole or elevation under the bottom of the car.

Once the plan is completely ready, then all the surfaces, boxes, shelving and other necessary additions necessary for the motorist have been taken into account. After drawing up a plan, where all the necessary space has already been taken into account, you can look at what materials to use, whether to insulate or not, what kind of lighting equipment there will be, and also whether the garage should accommodate any functionality other than what is necessary for operating and repairing the car.

Thus, it becomes clear why there is an urgent need to know exactly what dimensions the car will have if the garage is already ready. If the garage is still only at the design stage, you can use averaged data. You can calculate them yourself, knowing the minimum dimensions of one desired car model and the maximum dimensions of another proposed car.

Three-link road trains: other countries

Today, in this matter, Holland is considered the most liberal country in Europe (this country has significant relaxations in legislation not only in road trains). There are five hundred three-link road trains in the country (length up to twenty-five meters, total weight sixty tons), mainly container transport.

There are also Scandinavians in Europe, they have always had their own norms in this regard. Previously, everything was limited to figures of twenty meters in length and fifty tons of total weight, then the figures grew to twenty-five meters and sixty tons, respectively. Today, the length of a road train should not exceed thirty meters, and the road train itself should be within seventy-six tons of total weight.

It is noteworthy that at one time a Finnish road train with two trailers was running around our country (the Helsinki-Moscow-Helsinki route), this happened under a special intergovernmental agreement between the two countries.

Today in Finland on internal roads you can see a road train consisting of two trailers of forty meters each or four trailers of twenty meters each. In Sweden they went even further. They are conducting an experiment and in it they are testing themselves in the field of a road train with a total weight of up to ninety tons!

In the USA, such transportation also occurs, the difficulty is that different US states have their own laws and regulations. Michigan State stands out above all others. Here you can see on the road a road train with a gross weight of up to eighty-six tons, but such road trains have many wheel axles to reduce the load on the road surface.

In Canada, Latin America and even Africa there are also “three-linkers”. And in Brazil you can find a combination that goes beyond reason! There are combinations in the country in which the permitted length of a road train is a respectable thirty meters, with a total weight of eighty tons!

But that is not all. In this matter, Australia was ahead of the rest. There are road trains here that are limited to one hundred and sixty tons! This figure simply amazes the consciousness of our truck driver, but in Australia no one is surprised by this.