Hello all,
The posse and I are going on a little expedition next month and are going to need a minibus.
The original plan was for me to drive but I think I'm too young. I'm told 21 is the minimum age. Now only one of the group is 21 so she would need to drive it. I can't make head nor tail of the DVLA website (no I'm not looking at the Welsh version) so I wonder if anyone could help me:
1) Is she ok to drive a minubus aged 21?
2) What is the maximum seat number she can drive? - I'm guessing the 3.5 tonne weight limit comes into force
If we can whittle the numbers down, I thought about hiring a Galaxy or something and driving down in that but I'm assuming that isn't possible for the time being.
Thanks for any help,
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Adam
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I'm fairly sure that not even the person who's 21 can drive the minibus on a standard licence.
But I may be wrong.
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Last year to drive the uni minibus i had to pass another driving test as i was told that these days you not only do you have to be over 21 and but also you have to pass the minibus test.
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Ad,
Have a look here - may help you
www.dvla.gov.uk/drivers/drvmbus.htm
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Adam, the way you seem to be breaking things at the moment, maybe a few tandems would be a better bet.
Seriously, you will be hiring it, or trying to, the company(s) you approach should have all the info you need at their fingertips.
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Well - it looks like Corsa-driver and smoke are right - thanks for that link Phil - crazily enough, I completely missed that page on the site.
mjm - I suggested the tandem idea but it went down like a lead something or other.
Thanks for the help guys - separate cars it is.
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Adam
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"separate cars it is"
I'm sure that with all the recent improvements in public transport the bus or train would be far easier, cheaper and show your appreciation of environmental issues. (And please NW!)
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Adski - I was also in the same situation and the information on the DVLA website is about as ambiguous as it gets. Until you're over 21 and have taken an additional test, then no, you can't drive one. She will also need to have held a licence for over 2 years.
Public transport - check flybe.com, you may well be able to fly to your destination for less than the train or the bus.
I can fly back from Uni for £40 return, considerably less than the train.
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I'm sure that with all the recent improvements in public transport the bus or train would be far easier, cheaper and show your appreciation of environmental issues. (And please NW!)
I dunno, the youth of today. ::shakes head in despair::
Standards are slipping here!
The traditional way of transporting students is a battered minibus. Nothing else is quite as effective at compressing them into a sufficiently small and uncomfortable space that tempers can fray properly.
Failing a minibus, it is traditionally regarded as acceptable to shove them all into the back of a Transit, when they can sit on each others rucksacks. (A pedant may suggest that this unsafe, which is true up to a point. But it ignores the fact that that students are plentiful, and the broken ones can be replaced cheaply after any mishaps). The van offers better snogging facilities than the seats of a minibus, and has the advantage of allowing the driver to lock them all inside when he reaches the destination.
However, while the minbus may (at a pinch) be new, only an old (and dirty) van is acceptable. (Don't ask me why, I don't make the rules, but I think it's something to do with the way that sitting on builder's rubble or broken car parts encourages moaning and griping).
If neither minibus nor van are available, I'm afraid that a pair of cars is desperately uncool. All that comfort is completely un-student-like, and is wholly unconducive to the tradition of drinking like fish whilst being gratuitously abusive to each other of a worn-out engine. It is dificult to exchange seats in a car once it's underway, which can seriously impede the important ritual of snogging somebody else's boyfriend in front of witnesses who will embarrass you later.
Planes are equally unacceptable, unless stolen, broken or at the very leat illicit and unairworthy. A definite no-no.
So that leaves train or bus as the only valid option. However, do remember the small-print of the discounted fare scheme for students, which forbids travel unless alcoholically-rowdy, unwashed and oversexed and unsure of the destination.
Hope this helps!
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Adam,
I know of drivers of voluntary uni. "safety bus" services who drive minibuses without a lisense. They get away from it under part 2. of the website mentioned www.dvla.gov.uk/drivers/drvmbus.htm
You may drive a minibus with up to 16 passenger seats if:
i) you drive on behalf of a non commercial body for social purposes but not for hire or reward, unless operating under a permit;
It's a social occasion, so that's OK.
ii) you are aged 21;
As she is, so that's OK.
iii) you have held a car (category B) licence for at least 2 years;
If she has then that's OK
iv) you are providing your service on a voluntary basis; and
Which she will be.
v) the minibus maximum weight is not more than 3.5 tonnes excluding any specialist equipment for the carriage of disabled passengers. Minibuses up to 4.25 tonnes will be permitted in certain circumstances.
Make sure you're not taking the kitchen sink!
To be honest looking at the DVLA regulations (which look pretty clear) it looks like you'll be OK will a bus with 17 seats (16 passengers, 1 driver). The hire company may have a clause somewhere in their insurance so check with them first. But this should be OK, the company that hires the safety bus buses obviously doesn't mind even if one driver last week managed to rip the roof off like a sardine can (fight with a height restriction sign)!
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Mike Farrow
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"the back of a Transit, when they can sit on each others rucksacks."
So what happened to the traditional old grubby mattress??
Talking of which, many years ago I was travelling in an old van, asleep in the front with my feet up on the dashboard when the driver also fell asleep (it was 3am) I ended up going through the windsreen when we hit a thick stone wall which was at right angles to and came to the edge of the road. The bloke in the back was asleep on an old mattress on top of a pile of equipment. My first knowledge of our accident was waking up in the road with a mattress alongside me with a bloke still asleep on it!! (Asleep might be the wrong word here since we had both, imbibed a considerable amount of alcohol in the preceding 6 hours.) Very luckily, no-one was seriously hurt and no other vehicle involved.
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Speaking from experience, whilst you may legally be able to drive a minibus on a social outing, you'll be very lucky indeed to find anyone that will hire you one until you're at least 25. Some companies even have an age limit of 30. I hire and drive buses quite regularly for work, and until I reached my advanced age of 29 (!) I was limited to one or two companies (Sixt Kenning being one). Another way round it is to hire one or two people carriers. Budget would let us have Ford Tourans (Transits with about 9 seats) but not a minibus. So get 2 of them and the job's done, and probably cheaper than to hire one bus.
O
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Jaguar XJS V12 - comes with free personalised oil tanker.
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is it a hired minibus, a uni minibus, or a borrowed minibus ?. None would have less restrictions that the law, but a commercial hirer might not allow drivers under 25, or with less than 5 years, or whatever, so it's worth checking out with them now before it's to late.
If you want to find out how messy insurance can be, get the Scouts to organise a weekend away in a van borrowed from Wigan Council but driven by a leader from the Boys Brigade, with a roof rack full of rucsacs that was loaded by someone who did not go on the weekend, and have a rucsac fall off on the M6 and go through the windscreen of a cavalier.
(I don't know whose insurance paid out, but I know the driver got the points)
p.s. - where are you off to ?. It's about time we had a quiet weekend in Winstanley
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WEll - thanks for all of your replies people but the minibus idea is out of the window.
No-one will hire out to over 25's - surprising. So I tried the Galaxy idea - again - none to under 25's.
Separate cars it is then.
THanks again for all of your help
Mike - we're all heading down to Alton Towers for the day! :-) I'll be sure to hand down my Winstanley terrorising duties to the little neighbourhood kids for the day!
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Adam
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