What NOT to do while towing

[DennisG01]

In contrast to the other thread of towing rigs, got any good stories of what NOT to do? I'll start...

I was probably about 17, working at a small marina - and looking back, lot's of corners where cut at this place... which is kinda the underlying theme of this post. Well, we had to move a Maxum 20' cuddy cabin from our lot to a local used car dealership that was going to display it for sale. Not very far away, maybe 6 or 7 miles with half of it on a highway. I get the call to take the boat over there but the only truck available was our "lot" truck... a Chevy Luv. A fun truck - and you could beat on it all day long. But it was quite small and only had a little 4cyl engine. Think "Isuzu" from the late 70's/early 80's, if you've never seen one in person.

Anyways, off I go - the older guys all said "You'll be fine". OK, who was I to argue! Things were going fine till I started going up a hill on the highway and all of sudden... I noticed I could spin the steering wheel and nothing would happen! Nope, nothing broke - the front end was off the ground!!! After making sure the wheel was centered, I eased off the gas and it came back down. I pulled over to the side, hopped the guard rail, down an embankment and knocked on the door of a restaurant until they opened up (it was early in the day) so I could call the store to bring a bigger truck! Yeah, sometimes size DOES matter!

 

[Fishtales]

Yea, the guys were probably back at the marina driving coffee, eating donuts and laughing their butts off...

 

[SkunkBoat]

DON'T:

16 ft aluminum open boat....Make a left onto a 4 lane road with a curbed divider. Very slowly try to roll one wheel over the curb as the trailer straightens out...

DO:
be glad you had a strap holding it to the trailer.

 

[leeccoll]

DON'T forget to double check everything twice.

Made the mistake a few years ago of not setting my hitch ball correctly onto trailer. There was some construction crew where I kept my rig over the summer, and was chitty chatty with one worker, was enough to take me off my game. Started driving toward Donner Lake, and was on the frontage road merging on I-80 on a downgrade picking up speed. All of a sudden the trailer started to swerve at 45mph. And I am going downhill. Never felt like anything like that before, and was able to slowly reduce speed and pull over. Could have been a lot worse in retrospect. I thought at first I had no truck damage, but soon realized the boat trailer was pushing on my tailgate, which led to an $800 fix-a-dent.

Now I know why safety chains were invented....

 

[Ridge Runner]

Drive off after trusting your 16 year-old to hitch up the trailer... Made it all the way to the ramp, backing down the ramp and BAM! Lifts off the ball and trailer does a wheelie, caught by the chains...

Drive off from a restaurant without checking the hitch... Going down a construction zone and hit a big bump, dropped the car hauler trailer and everything went crazy for a few minutes until I could get it stopped, no shoulders, nothing to do but stop in the fast lane from 70 MPH! Turned out that someone had tried to steal the trailer, or just sabotage it. They had pulled all the pins from the weight distributing bars, and pinned the ball hitch open, and unplugged the electrics. Thankfully, they didn't get the chains off because I had used padlocks, so the trailer at least stayed behind the truck. Cost me a new bumper and trailer jack...

 

[magicalbill]

Do Not Drive in inclement wx.

Southbound on I-65 from Chicago going thru Northern IN, Dodge Dually pulling my 232 Gulfstream, early Jan.

Strong cold front blew thru with an Arctic Hi Pressure airmass close behind. Pre-passage, we had rain/snow mix, wetting the road surfaces. Post-passage it flash-froze on yours truly.

If any of you have traveled South on 65 thru Northern IN, you'll recall it's wide & flat, not unlike Kansas. Winds picked up to 20-30 out of the NW with nothing to stop them as the Arctic Hi established itself.

I was running 15-25 mph in the right lane as it was obvious the pavement was icing up quickly. One extra-strong burst of wind caught my rig broadside on the right and put it completely sideways in the interstate, 232 and Dodge sliding on a sheet of ice Fortunately, no traffic was passing me at that particular moment and somehow I got it straightened out. Shaking, (literally) I pulled off at the next exit, checked into the nearest flea bag motel and resumed the journey the next day when chemical had been applied to melt the ice along with lots of sun from the Hi Pressure.

Nowadays, I would examine that forecast and wait it out. NWS out of Romeoville called it correctly and I had it dialed up on my Weather Radio. I should've pulled off North of Chicago. Being on schedule means nothing if you stack up over 100K worth of gear. It is truly not worth it.

 

[family affair]

18 or 19 years old working for an underground cable crew for the summer. Boring machine runs out of water. Sent me back to shop to pick up another machine with a full water tank - about 13,000 lbs loaded hitched to a Ram dually. The truck was terribly underpowered for the load. I got onto the freeway and couldn't go more than 45-50 mph, then the fun starts. Hit a bump and the trailer starts to sway. I reach down to grab the brake controller and there isn't one! The guys at the shop not only loaded the trailer wrong they hitched up the wrong truck (they all looked the same)! I tried to brake to stop the sway and it got worse. I then tried to accelerate thinking it might pull the trailer into alignment. WRONG! Accelerating caused the trailer to cover most of 3 lanes swaying. I could even hear the rear wheels of the dually start to slide. Level 10 pucker! At that point I let off the gas and coasted. Everything settled down thankfully except my heart rate!
Moral of the story, make sure your truck and trailer are set up right before you leave the driveway and don't trust someone else to do it for you!

 

[Lite Tackle]

Don’t leave your 8’ VHF antenna that is mounted on your hardtop in the up position, while traveling. This will exceed the minimum vertical clearance under overhead structures including but not limited to; bridges, cantilevered traffic signals and traffic signs, trees and most any overhead obstructions lower than sixteen feet.

 

[Sparkdog118]

Don’t stop in the middle of the road near a curve where you can get rear ended.

 

[wrxhoon]

 

[Lite Tackle]

I see the problem, everybody was driving on the wrong side of the road. Looks like the driver with the dash cam was driving at speeds up to 105KPH (65mph). Gents with boat, maybe the same or a tad higher. Not too extreme. Trailer probably not setup correctly. Either way, dumb move. The fish must have really been biting.

 

[Andrew93]

I left the non-mounted spare tire right behind the lounge jack for winter storage (usually throw in bed of truck) on one of my first boats (23' Cobia). Bringing the boat to the canvas shop via side roads a few miles from the house I saw oncoming cars swerve and looked in the rearview mirror to see the boat moved on the trailer. I knew I forgot something, tire fell off and rolled upright under both axels. Crushed the rim in in 2 spots and one of the roller beams bend like a V from the boat slamming down on it.

Lesson learned to triple check that everything it tied down. The tire looked like it belonged there and completely forgot about it in a rush.

 

[wrxhoon]

I see the problem, everybody was driving on the wrong side of the road. Looks like the driver with the dash cam was driving at speeds up to 105KPH (65mph). Gents with boat, maybe the same or a tad higher. Not too extreme. Trailer probably not setup correctly. Either way, dumb move. The fish must have really been biting.

I would think the speed limit on that road would be 100kmh (62mph) the 2 cars he overtook would be traveling at about that speed . For the boat driver to go past them as quick as he did, under 10 seconds, he would have reached 130 KMH (80MPH) . way too fast for the conditions.
As you pointed out probably not enough weight on the tow bar and or overloaded trailer which is very common on boat trailers .
That's when an electric over hydraulic actuator would have saved him. As soon as the trailer started swaying pull the trailer brakes and she would stop swaying. In any case idiot driver but lucky he walked away, as for the boat she would polish off . A negligent driver ticket hopefully will remind him next time not to do that.