Mrs B and I both passed our tests in the seventies so have Grandfather rights to B+E. In fact our outfit, a Berlingo and an Explore 304 with a combined plated weight of 1350kg just creep under the 3,500kg limit; our kids who passed this century could drive it.

Judging by what I see on caravan sites there are an awful lot of overladen 'vans out there and plenty more with ill distributed loads. The vast majority of drivers are over 60 and will have automatic rights to 3,500kg plus.

Two questions I cannot see answers to:

1. Presumably heavier vehicles and trailers (above 3500kg) will fall within C1/C1E for which I retain grandfather rights but younger drivers will need an additional test.
2. Will UK B+E for youngsters be accepted in the EU?

From speaking to people who've done the B+E test, I'm not sure it was achieving much in the may of increasing competence anyway. Apparently there is very little asked about how to correctly load it, secure loads, driving dynamics etc. Other than being able to competently reverse the trailer, apparently the main challenge was to return to the "driving test" style of driving needed to pass after 10-15 years of driving.

This might benefit me, as I missed the 'Grandfather Rights' by only a few months. I do regularly tow light trailers, but haven't had the need to move anything bigger regularly enough to bother with the B+E test - I just ask my wife to drive on those occasions as she did her driving test six months before me!

What I'm not sure how it will result in many more lorry drivers on the roads though - it was a fairly niche test so can't have taken up that much time of driving examiners. Perhaps the government is expecting Eddie Stobart to get a fleet of LWB transits with big trailers to do the deliveries to Tesco!!

If they really wanted to get more people driving lorries. To achieve that, it would have made more sense to re-instate the automatic C1E entitlement you got before 1996. Then someone with just a "car" licence could move the best part of 10 tonnes of goods on a 7.5T truck with a trailer. I can see why did didn't do that though - you really must wonder why it was ever possible to do a driving test in a Fiat 500 and get a licence to drive such a large vehicle!!

you should be ok to tow now .put on the L plates and have wife as supervisor