Parking Dimensions for Horse Trailers

Designing parking lots for outdoor recreational areas require that planners take a number of factors into consideration, including providing adequate space for vehicles like RVs, trucks, cars and horse trailers to enter, maneuver and park. Also, if you are considering keeping horses, either on your own land or at a nearby horse farm, you'll want to make sure you have room to park your trailer.

  1. Entrance to the Parking Area

    • Designing a driveway to connect your acreage smoothly with the road can be a challenge, particularly if you are on hilly land. If you have a horse trailer, you will want to be particularly sensitive to changes in slope, or grade. Your ideal grade for a transition from driveway to road is no more than 2 percent, if your transition requires a sharp turn, but you can go up to 5 percent if the transition is straight or at a slight angle.

    Size of Parking Spaces

    • For normal passenger cars, the rule of thumb is 19 feet in length; for pickup trucks, the range is 15 to 22 feet, depending on cab and bed length. For recreational vehicles, the footprint can range from 32 to 47 feet. Factoring in a horse trailer can add anything from 16 feet for a two-horse trailer to 49 feet for a six-horse trailer.

    Turning Radius

    • An important factor to keep in mind, particularly if you're planning on pouring additional driveway to accommodate your horse trailer, is turning radius. A car with an average-length horse trailer (19 feet plus 30 feet) needs about 18 feet of turning radius; a motor home with the same trailer length will need about 40 feet.

    Angled Parking Areas

    • If you are designing a recreational area, or your acreage will need to accommodate more than a few vehicles, you will want to set up angled parking to allow vehicles towing horse trailers to pull through and then go around to your exit instead of having to back up. Setting up your parking spaces at 45- or 60-degree angles with a pull-through area will make for smoother driving.