Travelling safely in your motorhome

Keith Gooden

Welcome back to the Motorhome Matt podcast. My name is Keith Gooden and with me is our expert as usual – it’s Motorhome Matt Sims.

Matt Sims

Hello, Keith, how are you?

Keith Gooden

Fine, thanks. And you?

Matt Sims

I’m good. Yes, very good.

Keith Gooden

Good!

Matt Sims

Yes, it’s nice to be back.

Meet Keith and Matt at the October NEC show

Keith Gooden

Brilliant. We’re talking today mainly about travelling safely in your motorhome and how you can get caught out if you don’t know the law. But before we do that, let’s talk about the big show, the NEC show in Birmingham for motorhomes and caravans. You’re going to be there. We’re going to be there. What’s going on?

Matt Sims

Well, there’s lots going on. It’s going to be huge. It’s getting ever closer. It’s nice to be back at the show, I have to say, after a few years off. February was brilliant. It was a big success. The October show is bigger still. If you’ve never been, I encourage you to go. If you’re thinking of buying a caravan, campervan, or motorhome, then there are going to be hundreds and hundreds of them there on display brand new for you to look and go and climb all over and go and explore.

So it’s a fantastic show. There are loads of accessory stands as well. So there’s lots to see and lots to do. It’s a six-day show. And you could easily spend two days going around it and still not see all of it. So if you’re thinking of going and you’ve not yet got tickets, there’s something you need to know isn’t there?

Keith Gooden

There is! You can get a discount through this very podcast.

Matt Sims

Hooray!

Keith Gooden

Don’t contact us – go on to the ticketing website for the NEC Motorhome and Caravan show. And when it asks you for a code, put EX1 in. That’s E for echo, X for X-ray and then 1. You will get a discount.

Matt Sims

You will, and you’ll save a few pounds.

Keith Gooden

We’re going to be there. We’re going to be doing the podcast and we will also be scattered about the show doing interviews, so please come up and say hello. And we’ve got some of your comments coming up later on.

Win tickets to The Motorhome and Caravan Show 2022

Keith Gooden

Now, we have got competition entries for you to win free tickets. Not discounted – free tickets. How do people do that then, Matt?

Matt Sims

So we want your stories, your funny stories, your disaster stories or just a memorable experience you had in your campervan, motorhome or caravan. We want you to share them with us so we can share them with the rest of our listeners. Try and make us laugh or try and make us cry. And you can do that by recording them or submitting them via a form on our website at www.motorhomematt.co.uk/askmatt.

Now, if you head there, you can press the orange button, record your story and submit it to us. It’s really, really simple to do. If you’re not sure about doing that or don’t like the sound of your own voice, you can submit your story on a form and just press submit and we’ll get that in an email. And we hope to include them in a future episode and the best one – we will decide what best means – will win a pair of tickets. We’ve got six pairs to give away.

Keith Gooden

Six pairs to give away so you’ve got six chances. So your story will be, please, about motorhoming – whether it is disasters or heartwarming, whatever it is, we want to know. That address again, Matt, is…

Matt Sims

www.motorhomematt.co.uk/askmatt.

Keith Gooden

When you’re there, say your name and where you’re from as well. There are six pairs of tickets to give away – don’t delay, get on there and do it now. I will mention it again before the end of the podcast in case you didn’t have a pen and paper and didn’t write it all down. But we want you to take part and come and say hi to us at the big show as well.

Our first ticket winner is Donna!

Matt Sims

Hi everyone. I wanted to announce our first winner of a pair of tickets to the Motorhome and Caravan show at the NEC. Donna, congratulations. We loved your story. It really moved us and there’s a pair of tickets for you to go to the show. Now, Donna’s story is very moving and contains the story of her miscarriage. And if you’d rather not listen to it, we understand that. If you skip forward 90 seconds, you’ll be able to skip over the story and get back into the podcast.

Donna’s story starts, ‘My caravan holiday saved my life.’ Well, that got us hooked straight away. She wrote, ‘A few years ago when the kids were smaller, I had a miscarriage at four months into my pregnancy. My dad suggested that instead of coming home, we go away in their touring caravan. “What a great idea,” we thought. We told the kids, packed up and after a checkup from the doctor who said it was good, we went on our way.

‘We had an amazing first few days. On Tuesday morning, I got up to give the husband a lie-in after he’d done all the driving. I got the Aquaroll water carrier, filled it with fresh water and dragged it back to the caravan. It was very heavy. 20 minutes later, I collapsed. My husband rang an ambulance, and we went straight to the hospital for an emergency operation. It turns out I had septicemia and just 12 hours to live. Pulling that water carrier literally saved my life. I recovered a few weeks later.’

Wow, what a truly incredible story. And Donna, we’re so happy that you felt able to share it with us. And we don’t want to make light of the situation at all. We understand how distressing a story like this could be for individuals and families. It’s an important issue that affects many people and if you’re affected by it and need to talk to someone, there’s a great charity called the Miscarriage Association which you can find online at www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk.

Donna, congratulations. Thank you again, and I look forward to seeing you at the show.

Motorhome seatbelt rules and laws

Eric

Hi, Matt, my partner and I are looking to buy a motorhome with a rear lounge. There are only two seatbelts in the front but we want to take our children with us and they’re both under 10. Can we fit seatbelts in the back? What are the rules? Love the podcast!

Keith Gooden

So that is Eric who contacted us via the website, Matt, and that’s what we’re talking about today. Travelling safely -specifically, children and seatbelts.

Matt Sims

Eric was one of a number of people with questions about seatbelts and preparing to travel safely. And obviously, before you go off on any trip, there are all the obvious things you should do, so checking your oil and checking your tyres – tyres are really important. Tyre pressure, tyre condition, tyre age – it’s easy to forget how long the tyre has been fitted. If they’re more than seven years old, then it’s recommended you change them. And there’s a little pill-shaped badge on the sidewall of the tire that has four numbers on it.

So for example, it might say 0215, and that means that the tyre was made in February 2015. So now you should be replacing that tyre because that will be seven years old. And you can find it – it’s about the size of your thumbnail. It’s a pill shape with those four numbers in it.

Keith Gooden

So tyres go stale, do they?

Matt Sims

Well, they go out of date, so it’s definitely worth checking them. And on a motorhome, of course, or a caravan, they’re stood for a long period of time not being moved, and the sun can damage them and cause the sidewall to crack. If you’ve clipped a curb in the past that can cause the tire to bulge over time. And in the tread pattern, look for cracks as well. Cracks can cause a blowout, which is the type of thing you don’t want to happen in a motorhome or a caravan.

Keith Gooden

Even a little bulge on the sidewall of your tire could mean it blows out on the motorway, and you don’t want that. And the tyres aren’t like the ones you had on your bike. There’s a lot more metal in them, and a lot more technology than you think. So make sure you do inspect them. I didn’t know they could go out of date, I must admit.

Matt Sims

They do, yes.

Keith Gooden

Okay, then. What about the seatbelts, Matt?

Matt Sims

So this is Eric’s question. So the rules around seatbelts are actually black and white. I’ve always found that some motorhome salesmen make it a bit grey. So you can buy a motorhome that’s a six berth, so six of you can sleep in it and it has two seatbelts – just the front passenger and front driver. They have to be three-point seatbelts, and there are no seatbelts in the back because the layout is two side sofas and a big bed at the back.

Keith Gooden

So when you say, ‘Three-point seatbelt,’ what do you mean?

Matt Sims

So it comes over your shoulder and goes down diagonally to the opposite hip and then across your waist to the other hip. So it’s mounted at three points. A two-point belt is what we call a lap belt.

Keith Gooden

I’ve got you. And a five-point belt, which some people use for children sometimes on aeroplanes, is the one that goes over your shoulders and around your waist and clicks in the middle.

Matt Sims

That’s what I’d want if I was going on a trip with you and you were driving!

Keith Gooden

That’s advisable! Now, the law specifies minimum standards, doesn’t it? Everybody says, ‘Well, I’ve done what it says in the law.’ Those are the minimum standards. You want to keep your family and your friends safe so it’s best to go above and beyond them.

Matt Sims

Absolutely, and there are very strong rules about fitting seatbelts. They have to be fitted to the chassis. They can’t just be screwed to the wooden carcass of the seat. They have to be bonded to the chassis. There must be a headrest and they can only be forward or rear facing. Another factor is how many travelling seats your motorhome is registered to have on the DVLA, so on your V5, the blue and red registration document that we often talk about. And it will say on there how many travelling seats are in it.

So just randomly adding seatbelts is not an option. You can’t just do that. I would recommend you never do that, especially a sideways one. That is deemed to be very, very unsafe. You could impact your insurance as well if you add seatbelts, so you’re adding travelling seats, and you’re going to be adding weight to the motorhome, the payload that it can carry – and we’ve talked about payload at length – but that load that it can carry is based on the number of travelling seats.

So if you add another passenger, you could push the motorhome overweight. It’s a good idea to be mindful of that, and there are some key dates that you need to know. Back in October 1988, all front seats had to carry a seatbelt. And finding motorhomes that are that old is possible. And then on the 20th of October 2007, the rules around how many people a motorhome could carry were determined by the number of seatbelts. So if it had four seatbelts, it could only carry four people.

Keith Gooden

So you can’t tie granny into the Divan at the back and imagine that she’s safe. So after October 2007, if you’ve got four seatbelts, then you can take four passengers and nobody else floating around inside.

Matt Sims

Exactly, yes.

Loading your motorhome

Keith Gooden

You’ve mentioned there the number of people and loading. That’s a big part of travelling safely, isn’t it, in a motorhome?

Matt Sims

Yes, it is, and make sure you’re loaded safely and that you’re spreading the weight over the axles evenly so you’re not overloading an axle. That’s really important. Things like considering water. Are you carrying a full tank of water? That could be 100 kilos. Half a tank of water is obviously half the weight, but it becomes a dynamic load. So you go round a roundabout and it’s sloshing around. It’s like having me in the back moving side to side!

Keith Gooden

People say, ‘Well, I filled up with fuel and that doesn’t slosh around.’ It has baffles, which are little compartments in the fuel tank to stop that from happening. Your water tank-,

Matt Sims

Doesn’t.

Keith Gooden

No. There you go. And as you’ve advised in the past podcasts, ‘Why not just fully water up when you get to where you’re going?’

Matt Sims

Exactly. Yes, why travel with it full? You’re going to use more fuel because you’re carrying more weight. So loading safely is really important. If you’ve got a bike rack, make sure that that’s safe and secure. If you’re putting stuff on the roof, again, make sure that that’s tied down safely. Common sense, you know. With seatbelts though, adding seatbelts is a no-no. I’ve seen them added many times sideways, and it just nullifies the value of the vehicle potentially.

Now, interestingly the rules about children and seat belts – did you know that a child under three cannot travel if there’s no belted seat available? You’ve got to leave them at home. So if you’ve bought a four-berth motorhome with four seatbelts and you’ve got three kids and you’re two adults, well, pick your least favourite.

So when you’re buying a motorhome, you need to think about how many seatbelts you need. If it’s older than 2007 then the rules are a little more relaxed, because it was before the law about belted seats. But even then, if you’re travelling over 60 miles an hour and you’ve got someone sitting in the back and they’re not belted in, you could fall foul of the law. The police could stop you.

Keith Gooden

And we’ll repeat it again and again and again – no homemade seatbelts, you can’t do it. You must get experts to fit them. The laws are very strict and if you’re done you will be done right proper.

Matt Sims

Yes, £100 a passenger and potentially if it goes to court a £500 fine for the driver.

Condition of your vehicle

Matt Sims

So the general condition – I mentioned tyres, but also the condition of the windscreen wipers. Are all the bulbs working? Again, it’s common sense. It’s worth just spending a few minutes before you travel just checking everything through because you may not have used it for a few weeks and you don’t know what’s happened in the time that it’s been standing there.

Walk around it, and check the condition of the panels. Check nothing’s come loose, and that the garage doors are locked properly and so on.

Keith Gooden

And preparation – why is that important when you want to travel safely? Because people do a lot of preparation, don’t they? You think about where you’re going and what you’re doing, the fuel, as you say, the water – that’s all preparation isn’t it? But what do people forget?

Matt Sims

Checking levels. Check your engine oil and washer fluid. That’s a classic to forget. I’m always forgetting that one.

Keith Gooden

And that’s an MOT fail as well if your washers don’t work.

Matt Sims

And light bulbs. Check your side lights and indicators are all working. Modern newer vehicles will tell you when a light bulb’s blown on the dash, which is dead handy. It often confuses people because an orange light comes on and you go, ‘What’s wrong?’ And it’s a blown indicator bulb. But it’s just going around. The fog lights – you don’t know if you’re going to be driving and you’re going to encounter fog. Check it’s working.

Just spend a few minutes, as I say, just preparing for the trip. And you could save yourself a whole host of problems and a lot of trouble if you just take a few minutes just to check the vehicle around and check everything’s operating properly.

Keith Gooden

Now, this sounds like obvious stuff. But a lot of people just say, ‘Oh, okay, it’s Friday, let’s just jump in and go,’ but those extra bits of preparation do make all the difference. And of course, if you haven’t checked that you’ve got enough fuel in there and then you’re praying because you’re on fumes until the next fuel station or you have been silly enough to fill up your water tank – just double-check. Everybody knows it’s obvious.

Matt Sims

There’s nothing wrong with filling your water tank before you go. If you’re going to stop somewhere where there’s no campsite and no facilities then you’re going to need water. So there’s no harm in doing that at all, but it’s just being mindful that if you’ve filled the water tank, you’re going to be carrying quite a lot of extra weight.

Keith Gooden

And using more fuel.

Matt Sims

Yes, absolutely. With children as well, talking about them being three, it’s a really magical age. Not only can they not travel if there’s no belted seat, but they can travel in the back without a seatbelt.

Keith Gooden

Really?!

Matt Sims

This is on the government website, yes. So that rule was created so that children could travel in a taxi, Hackney carriage, van or bus with no seatbelts.

Keith Gooden

So you can have a small child without a seatbelt, and not on somebody’s lap in the back of your motorhome?

Matt Sims

Provided they’re over three, yes.

Keith Gooden

Would you?

Matt Sims

No, of course not! They’re meant to be in a car seat until they’re twelve years old or 135 centimetres tall. And they should be in a car seat, the appropriate car seat, with a seatbelt. And if you’re travelling with children, please don’t travel with them unbelted. I’ve often seen motorhomes, particularly with a rear lounge layout, a U-shaped lounge at the back, and I’ve seen a family of six or seven sat back there with dad at the wheel. And you just think, ‘It’s so dangerous.’ Please don’t do it.

Keith Gooden

It is dangerous. And it’s not necessarily a collision that’s going to do you in. It could be somebody cutting in front of you and you having to avoid them or you hitting the curb. Any number of things could happen and people can be thrown around inside the cabin and sustain an injury. It’s easy to break an arm. And just briefly, if you go to France -and we mention France a lot here, haw he haw – no kids are allowed in the front of the car in France.

Matt Sims

If they’re under 10, no, they’re not allowed in the front. I didn’t know this until I looked into this when we went to France for the first time.

Keith Gooden

And kids love sitting in the front and will nag you.

Matt Sims

Yes. If they’re under 10, they need forward or rearward-facing seats. If they’re a baby they’d be rear facing. They’re not allowed to sit in the front unless there is not a seatbelt for them to sit restrained by in the back. So that’s the condition.

Keith Gooden

And as I’ve said before, when it comes to driving on the continent, particularly in France and Spain, they will pull you over and the fines are instant. They will escort you to a cash point and take the money away from you. It’s not like over here. You can’t argue with them because they’ve got guns. Never argue with a man with a gun, I always say, or a woman.

Okay, and finally, payload. And we did our driving load laws episode, didn’t we? And we’ve done a payload episode separately. So you get much more detail there. But these things should be obvious to you – just double-check them again and again.

Matt Sims

It’s just being mindful of what the payload of the vehicle is and what you can carry in terms of weight. And it’s understanding what your unladen weight is and what your maximum weight is. The difference between the two is your payload. And how much do your shoes and beer and fancy hats cost in weight?

Keith Gooden

Fancy hats?!

Matt Sims

Yes.

Keith Gooden

How many fancy hats do you take with you?

Matt Sims

Fancy shirts! You’ve got your dad’s shirt on again.

Keith Gooden

We hope that’s been of some help to you in travelling safely. You make sure you stow those fancy hats, whatever you do.

Matt Sims

Some of them are heavy.

Keith Gooden

They are! We’ll put a gallery of Matt in his fancy hats up at some stage in the future. What we’re going to do now is look at the questions people have been sending us, actually on the website.

Matt Sims

Yes, thank you!

Keith Gooden

Thanks very much.

Audience questions

Adrian: Is there an A-class motorhome for five people with five seat belts that isn’t huge and doesn’t cost the earth?

Keith Gooden

Adrian has written to us. And he says, ‘I’ve just discovered your channel so I’ll be watching and listening more on my journey, I hope, to Motorhome Matt. Can I ask – is there a perfect A-class motorhome for five people with five seat belts that isn’t huge and doesn’t cost the earth?’ And here with the rabbit from the hat is!

Matt Sims

Stand by, Adrian.

Matt Sims

Yes, here we go! That’s a great question. We actually looked for an A-class motorhome years ago that had more than four seat belts and I could not find one. I couldn’t find one. It’s a spot-on question. We actually ended up buying an American RV, a big motorhome. It had six seat belts and slept eight. It had a corner bath. So A-class motorhomes, I guess, are traditionally aimed at couples. They’re not necessarily in that realm of family motorhomes.

Keith Gooden

When someone says A class, what does it mean?

Matt Sims

Okay, yes. Good point. Sorry. So it looks like a bus. It’s got a great big windscreen. When it’s built there is no original van cab, so the bonnet is taken away and it’s delivered with two seats and the steering wheel and the chassis. And then the motorhome manufacturer builds the entire body and a big windscreen on the front. And they can often be referred to as looking like a bus. They’re the head turners on any campsite. An A class will roll in and everyone will go, ‘Ooh, look at them!’

Keith Gooden

Standing there in their fancy hats.

Matt Sims

And they traditionally don’t have five seat belts. Now, you could perhaps retrospectively fit one – it ties in quite nicely, this, doesn’t it? – provided you have forward or rearward-facing seating capability with a headrest. If it’s rearward facing it could be a lap belt. If it’s forward-facing it has to be, I would suggest, a three-point belt, so one over your shoulder like you have in the car.

The payload will be one of the reasons A-class motorhomes don’t have a fifth belt because it would just make them too heavy. And the fact that, as I say, they are geared more toward a market that is two couples or couples on their own, and almost the fact that rear seatbelts are just an extra really and not even a necessity. And I’d say most A classes are probably owned by couples and not by families.

So I think you’re in for a challenge, Adrian, to try and find one. I actually, before answering this question, did search hard for an A class with five seat belts. I couldn’t find one.

Keith Gooden

So the answer to your question, Adrian, is no.

Wayne: I’m looking to get a 12-volt mobile router for Wi-Fi. Any suggestions?

Keith Gooden

Wayne’s written to us. ‘Hi, Matt. I’m new to motorhoming and looking to get a 12-volt mobile router for Wi-Fi. Any suggestions?’

Matt Sims

I’m assuming you want to run a laptop. You can of course just use your phone and tether it. There are specific MiFi units that you can buy. Hawaii – is that how you say that?

Keith Gooden

Huawei, the Chinese company?

Matt Sims

Yes, it begins with H.

Keith Gooden

Not Hawaii, Huawei. Huawei!

Matt Sims

You say that.

Keith Gooden

What?

Matt Sims

That. Anyway, back to the fancy hats. Can I go home yet?

Oh, you mean Huawei?

Yes, Huawei! Huawei. So they make a great little MiFi unit. And there are lots of them out there, of course. They have a SIM card in like a mobile phone and they’re data only. And you can mount a Wi-Fi aerial on the roof of the motorhome, so it means drilling the motor home potentially, and then that’s permanently on the motorhome. And the MiFi unit just clips in and you connect the aerials.

There’s a company called Motorhome Wi-Fi. They’re one of a number of companies that will install this for you or supply it for you and then you could get a mobile installer to fit it. And that’s a great way of having a permanent Wi-Fi connection in your motorhome. The benefit then, and this is why I ask, ‘What do you want to do with it?’ is that you could potentially then watch Amazon. You can stream TV and watch Netflix or the BBC. You could have an Apple TV player as well. So you can watch TV without having an aerial over the internet.

Keith Gooden

You can. Okay, I hope that answers your question.

David: What van is best to convert into an off-grid camper with a budget of up to £25,000?

Keith Gooden

David has written in and said ‘what van is best to convert into an off-grid camper with a budget of up to £25,000?’

Matt Sims

I’m assuming the £25,000 includes the conversion. Any van, really. If you want all-terrain tyres, you can fit the BF Goodrich ones to anything. I would be looking at Fiat Ducatos, Vauxhall Movanos and Sprinters if they’re in good enough condition and not too rusty because they’re very prone to that. It’s all about the condition or the quality of the conversion as well as what features and functions you want in it.

I would say go for a van with great service history in good condition. In terms of the conversion inside, you can buy conversion kits, of course, that will fit and are designed to go in a van, particularly the VW models. So T5, T6 or older than that even, and the Crafter as well. Converters will build furniture for you that you can just fit straight in. But if you want to do a custom conversion, that potentially could be cheaper because you’re making it yourself. So I don’t think there’s a specific van that would be the favourite for this.

Fiat Ducato is favoured by the factory manufacturers largely because the chassis is built in such a way that there’s lots of space for water tanks, cabling and so on. That’s one of the reasons Fiat, Peugeot and Citroen are so popular. And cost as well. Another factor is the Maxi chassis feature of those makes. So the rear wheels are wider apart than the front. And that aids the stability so on corners it’s not rocking around so much.

Those are some of the reasons that those makes are-, I think it was 88 point something per cent of the motorhome market last time I looked. And they are very, very popular. I’d consider one of those brands for those reasons.

Keith Gooden

Fantastic. Just £25,000, by the way. Is that enough of a budget for doing a conversion like that?

Matt Sims

I think you’re probably going to end up doing a lot of it yourself. Yes, it could be.

Keith Gooden

I mean, how much will the basic van cost you? That’s going to cost you, what, £12,000 or £15,000?

Matt Sims

Yes, it was from 2010 onwards. Vans have just gone up in price ridiculously. We saw some for-, we have a horsebox conversion business here, and it’s just getting increasingly hard to find the vans we want with the mileage on at the age they are to become a donor van to become a horsebox.

So you’re going to have to search. Lease companies aren’t selling out of them the way they used to, because the new ones aren’t available. They’re hanging on to them for longer. So that means that supply is short and the prices are up. So it’s just searching high and low and finding the right van. As I say, service history is going to be key over body condition. That can be fixed. Service history – you can’t fix that.

Keith Gooden

Thanks for the question, David. If you are listening or watching this and you want to ask Matt a question, what should they do Matt?

Matt Sims

You can get in touch with us at www.motorhomematt.co.uk/askmatt.

Keith Gooden

Thanks for listening to the Motorhome Matt podcast. Remember to check back here for more episodes full of hints and tips and helpful advice. We’ll see you soon for another Motorhome Matt podcast brought to you with www.thatleisureshop.com.