Hey there this Mark Koep with CampgroundViews.com. Today I’m going to talk to you a little bit about the special licenses you need to drive an RV or more importantly, the question of do I need a special license to drive an RV? And the answer to that is really simple. It depends. I know that’s a bad answer. It depends is not a good simple answer because it really does depend. It depends on a number of factors, a number, it depends on the state in which you have a driver’s license. So the state which you live in, you’re actually licensed as a driver. So if you’re a California driver, Arizona driver, Florida, New York, all these different States, you’re going to have different rules on the licensing requirements that you have. Those roles will depend, as I said, on the state, but also they will depend upon the type and size of RV you’re going to drive.

For example, in California the larger fifth wheel units, you need a special endorsement to tow anything over, I believe it’s like 40 feet averse, a special lengthen. And I’m guessing, right? Because I don’t know. So if we go to California DMV driver license special requirements for towing fifth wheel, and I know that there’s an endorsement that you have to have for an RV towing a fifth wheel because I’m from California originally and we had a fifth wheel and I needed a special sticker on my license in order to tow it. So it’s actually a, I’ve type C with a fifth wheel endorsement if it’s over 10,000 pounds, but not over 15,000 pounds, gross vehicle weight rating. You’ll see a lot of that stuff. These GVWR is, you’re going to see that all over the place. When you start doing this research, what does that mean?

The, the G V w R is gross vehicle weight rating. It’s a number that’ll be placed right up on a decal somewhere within the unit. If it’s an RV, like a trailer or fifth wheel, it’s usually a sticker up near the hitch area. Or if you open the door to the, where the propane store, it’ll be smacked onto the back of that door. It’s a decal and there’ll be a, there’ll be a number on there. It’ll say gross vehicle weight rating that’s required by law. When they let me ship it, there’s a number on there, that number, it tells you the maximum amount of weight that that RV can tow or that RV can hold. It’s, it’s usually limited by the tires. The weight that those tires can carry. But also sometimes it’s, it’s actually limited by the suspension and the ability of that suspension to carry weight.

It’s a strict number, meaning if you go over that number, so if you load your trailer up with a whole bunch of gear and you, you go, you got a trailer that can carry 15,000 pounds, gross vehicle weight rating and you loaded 20,000 pounds a year, there’s a potential that if you get in an accident and they way that unit, they could find you liable because you’re operating a vehicle beyond its rated capacity. [inaudible] There’s not a lot of stories of that actually happening in real life. It’s, it’s more prevalent on the commercial side. So if you see big rigs with the the weight check areas, they usually can find themselves going over those weights and getting in trouble. But on the private side, for RVs, you don’t see that so much. But where you really see it is you’ll see blowout. So when people get blow outs on the side of the road, there’s two factors that actually have several factors. So old tires speed or overloading that particular axle, putting too much weight on it. We’ll usually cause a blowout or broken suspension parts. The last thing, you want to have is broken suspension on any RV, whether it’s yours or a rental. So that would be the other thing. So understanding the requirements of your driver’s license is depending upon state. So you’re really gonna have to do some research. So, so if you’re a Nevada residents, you’d do a Nevada DMV requirements license to drive RV.

So you’ll get the DMV in Nevada and you’ll get the information on it. It’ll be very specific. Most of them across the States is 26,000 pounds is like that limit. And that’ll allow you to drive most types of class A’s, class B’s, and class CS because a large portion of them are not heavier than 26,000 pounds. But the bigger ones, the really big ones can weigh a lot more than 26,000 pounds. And that’s when you start going over into the class a style licenses or even the commercial style licenses were required to drive a unit of that size. So the answer to the question of do I need a special license to drive an RV in the vast the vast, in the vast number of RVs we have listed on RV and go, the answer would be no. You don’t need a special license. You just need to be legally licensed in your state, in the United States.

And the RV follows in underneath these different categories. Where the special licensing comes into play is if you’re towing really large fifth wheels or if you’re driving a really large class, a primarily diesel pushers. So most of these class days are going to come in and I under 26,000 pounds. Let’s see if we can get find one that we’re talking about here. Okay. I think this, even the store motor coach probably is under, under the weight. Let’s do a quick search. I doubt we have the weight here. Yes. We’ll pull this one up real fast. So I’m going to do a quick Google search for this unit wheat. Actually I’ll, I’ll do the GVWR and we’ll see what we find out.

Go to the actual manufacturer site or motor coach USA. I’m moving my head out of the way here in the seat. So the gross vehicle weight on that is 38,000 pounds. So that’s a perfect example of a unit that has a GVWR that’s beyond what most States requires. So there’s a chance you would need special licensing in order to drive that particular unit. Some of these other units? Most likely not. Yeah. That’s the steps you go to. So look at your state laws for where your licensed a driver. So if you could be flying to, you know, in this case Phoenix to rent an RV and you’re from California, you would be licensed as a California driver. So understand the laws of your state that you’re from. When you rent that unit in Arizona, that carries over because you’re the driver from California, you’re licensed in California.

So understand your California laws and then you would look up the weights of these units and then based upon that then you can rent the proper unit for your next trip. So I hope this information helps you if you’re wondering what type of license, if any type of license you need to rent an RV, start at your state level, do some quick searches and then understand the type of units you’re going to rent and you can ask the proper questions there. I hope this helps you better make a decision for your next RV rental trip and I hope you choose RV and go to help you book that next round trip. If you have any problems or any questions, feel free to use this chat bar at the bottom of the screen and connect with us. We’re here, we provide awesome sport and I hope you found this video helpful. So look forward to seeing you out on the open road, cruising this country in an RV.