The professionalisation of roadside assistance is a reality today. It is important to make known the requirements for those considering working as tow-truck operators.
Roadside assistance vehicles belong to the tow truck family; those designed for assistance are known as tow trucks or recovery vehicles. Used in urban settings to remove badly parked cars or vehicles, these tow trucks perform a much better-known task, which is also the one that concerns us at REAC: rescue and roadside assistance work when an incident or accident occurs. For this reason, people who want to become tow-truck operators, as well as getting hold of the roadside assistance operator's manual, need to know which licence they require to drive a tow truck.
The licence required depends on the Maximum Authorised Mass (MAM) of the tow truck in question: in other words, the driving licence required for an ordinary vehicle. So, if the MAM is below 3,500 kilograms, a category B licence is sufficient. On the other hand, for vehicles with a MAM of between 3,500 and 7,000 kilograms, a category C1 licence will be required (the one normally used for lorries); if the tow truck exceeds seven tonnes, the compulsory licence will be category C.
Ages for licences
While for category B and C1 licences it is enough to be 18 years old, the minimum age for obtaining a category C licence is slightly higher (21). C1 and C licences are valid for five years (three once the holder reaches 65), unlike the B licence, which is valid for ten years (likewise, three from the age of 65).
There are licence combinations for towing (B+E or C1+E, for example), which are often wrongly associated with the tow trucks or recovery vehicles used in roadside assistance. For this reason, it should be made clear that none of these licences is needed to drive this type of tow truck, whose job is to tow vehicles that were not exactly designed and built to be towed.