England is known as one of the strictest ruler on the road and driving licensing. With new rules every year, country decreased the number of accidents and today it’s one of the Europe countries with least accidents in a year. It was very common to see drivers with no license in 60s in UK but today there are new and developed categories which is making possible to take license on need and use it easily. How many categories of driving licenses are there in England?
Category AM, Category P and Category Q is for Mopeds. With Category AM license, it’s possible to drive 2-wheeled vehicles with 25km/h speed standard. It must speed up to 45km/h maximum. If it’s electric vehicle, it must be under 350 kg without batteries. Category P is for 2-wheeled vehicles and their speed must be 50 km/h at maximum. If the vehicle has an internal engine, it must be 50cc at maximum. Category Q similar to Category P as allows 50 cc engines at maximum but vehicle must have 25km/h maximum speed.
For motorcycles, Category A, Category A1 and Category A2 driving license categories. This kind of motorcycles with license is known as light motorbikes. For Category A1 driving license, engine size of vehicle must be 125cc maximum and power output must be 11kW at most. UK also added motor tricycles to this category but they power output must be 15kW at most. For category A2 license, power output must be 35kW at most and it must catch 0.2kW/kg ratio. Also UK police is controlling if motorbike is a derived vehicle. There are some known motorbikes derived from other vehicles which have double power. In Category A, drivers can drive motorbike with power output up to 35kW. Also UK added motor tricycles to this category with 15kW power output.
Category B1 driving license is for light vehicles and quad bikes. There are two different motor vehicles entering this category. They are for carrying people or carrying goods. If this 4 wheel vehicle is for carrying people, it must be at most 400kg and if it’s for carrying goods, it must be at most 550 kg.
For driving cars, there are three categories as Category B, Category B auto and Category B+E. With driving license Category B, it’s possible to drive vehicles up to 3,500kg and 8 passengers. You can also add a 750kg trailer to car. Also there’s a special subcategory of Category B for physically disabled drivers. When they have Category B driving license, they can ride A or A1 motor tricycles. It was possible for able-bodied people to ride motor tricycles with provisional B license but it’s not possible now. Category B auto is same with Category B but people with this category can only ride Automatic cars. When Category B+E is taken, driver can ride cars and its trailers even they are over 3500 kg.
For medium-sized vehicles, there are two category licenses. They are Category C1 and Category C1+E. With Category C1, it’s possible to drive up to 7,500 kg vehicles. Also there’s a right to put trailer to car up to 750kg. When license is Category C1+E, it means driver can pick trailer with over 750 kg on it. But according to law, total weight must be at most 12,000kg.
Minibus drivers can take Category D1 or Category D1+E driving licenses. On Category D1 driving license, vehicle must have 16 passenger seats at most. Also length of vehicle can’t exceed 8 meters and trailer can be 750 kg at most. Category D1+E means trailer and vehicle weight can be up to 12,000kg.
