That has changed in recent times and depending if you held your licence before 1st jan 1997 and the type of weight a trailer is and the combined weight of tow an trailer.
Simply, if you got your licence before you can carry on as before with most normal cars and Caravans, if you got it after htose tiny trailers for moving garden rubbish etc should be ok but for a caravan or a reasonable boat trailer a test will be required. Also drivers over 70 when getting thier renewal may need to check what they can still drive especially those who may wish to tow behind a heavish vehicle like a motorhome.
Does the weight of the trailer relative to the car make that much difference to being able to reverse it? That's a matter of learning the muscle memory and judging degree of counter-steer and the point at which you need to switch from counter-steer to normal steering as the caravan starts to point in the direction you want it to go in. Some people (like my wife) can learn that skill by reading it in a book and practicing it for a day or so, whereas others like me are taught it (*) and *still* haven't even begun to master it (ie remain at the clueless novice stage without making any progress). I reckon to some extent it's a skill you are or aren't born with.
I agree though that relative weight *does* make a difference when it comes to stability and controlling snaking at speed.
I'd have thought by now it would be an absolute prohibition on towing if you passed after a certain date unless or until you have proved that you can reverse the thing, not a graduated permission to tow up to a certain weight. I imagine a small trailer can be harder than a big caravan because it is so short that its axle is very close to the car's back axle so the "gearing" on the steering (ie how much you need to move the car's back end to move the trailer the opposite way) is coarser, and when the trailer is nearly in line with the car its shortness and narrowness means its sides can't be seen in any of the three mirrors to check which way it is pointing and by how much (ie if you want to reverse in a straight line, is the trailer still in line with the car?)
(*) After several lessons, my tutor said "some people can do it, whereas other people's brains are wired differently and they never make any progress". I interpreted this is "you're wasting your money; let me spend my time teaching people who are teachable" ;-) He did an interesting test with me: he took me into the Gents (because it had a big mirror) and put a piece of card horizontally in front of my face just below my eyes at the top of my nose. He then held up his hand somewhere in front of my face so I could only see it as a mirror-image reflection, and asked me to touch his hand. I found this very difficult. "There's your problem" he said, confidently, in a "nuff said - stands to reason, dunnit" Cockney patois.
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I always found that a trailer that was reasonably large was easier to maneuver but growing up on a farm at least gave me the chance to learn. Really small trailers react much quicker, sometimes too quick and often not being able to see them until they have got out of line is a pain as by then it is hard to correct,though that may be a situation where a sensibly mounted reversing camera could be better than mirrors. Those small trailers that are still allowed are small enough that the user will often find that uncoupling them and maneuvering them by hand is quicker .
A question for caravan users here, do any modern caravans have any cameras fitted that the rear view from the van can seen on a tow vehicles display? It would seem be a sensible option .
I have admit I'm of the age that considered Caravans a bloody nuisance to other road users but now that a lot more people use sensible tow cars and better engineered Caravans they are not the rolling road blocks they once were and sights like an overloaded Sprite threatening to take control of an underpowered Morris Marina are now much rarer.
My brother, like many people, retired and bought a motor home after a lifetime of driving nothing bigger than a sedan. He also towed a Toyota behind it. He was all in favor of an additional endorsement.
I've tried to teach someone how to back up with a trailer and it can be frustrating. Many spend a lot of time and scheming to make sure they never will have to. Commercial campgrounds like KOA prominently advertise pull-through sites. When the fateful day comes when they have to go backwards, they in trouble.
Definitely the shorted the hitch to axle dimension, the trickier it is. Even with big trucks a 53' trailer is easier than a 21' pup for straight backing. It's obviously harder to maneuver in tight spaces.
It all has to do with ratios - the distance between the rear axle and the hitch pivot, and the distance between the hitch pivot and the trailer axle. The closer the hitch is tothe towing vehicle axle the easier it is to back - and the greater the distance between the hitch pivot and the trailer ball the easier it is to back - and the ratio between the two - how much the trailer length is compared to the hitch length.
You haven't had "fun" untill you've backed a 4 wheel hay wagon with automotive type steering behind a baler on an offset hitch behind a tractor - with the wagon loaded 10 bales high - when you cut the corner a bit short coming around a gate post - - -
Often see that done for boat trailers so the driver can see when the boat has floated . I was using small trailer in the UK sense for a small cargo mover This sort of thing.
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A couple of decades ago there was a small fad cut an original mini in half and the roof off ,weld on a towbar and make a cheap small trailer out of it. havn't seen one around for years though. Most wern't this smart.
I've backed up a hay wagon attached to the tractor by a pintle hook. You know that saying about not being able to hit the broad side of a barn?
The head packer had a thing about the traditional old wagon so we'd use it if he was around. Feeding stock out of a 3/4 ton pickup is one hell of a lot easier in more ways than one.
You don't see it too much with modern unibody cars but making a pickup out of an old sedan was popular. It drives the car restorers nuts to find a vintage whatever that someone has been at with a cutting torch.
Its the same in the UK - a bus license is completely seperate from a truck license and having one is legally no use for the other. Which doesn't make much sense to me. A bus is just a rigid truck with people instead of cargo, the only difference is knowing where to pull in safely to stop which should be a 2 min quiz.
It doesn't anymore in the EU & UK. A car license is class B, to tow anything behind a car or van you now need B+E. I don't know when it was changed but if someone has just got their car license and heads off with a caravan hitched up they're breaking the law.
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