Be safe! Be sure you are using the correct hitch!

[arveetek]

It always surprises me whenever I see someone towing in an obviously unsafe manner.

The other day my uncle dropped off my 16' flatbed trailer that he had borrowed. I wasn't around when he picked it up, but when he dropped it off, I noticed that the trailer tongue was visibly loose on the hitch ball. Yep, you guessed it, he was using a 1 7/8" ball with a 2" coupler! Recipe for disaster.

Did anybody watch American Choppers last night? They pulled out of their shop with what looked like a new F250 towing their enclosed motorcycle trailer. They didn't get very far down the road before the trailer popped off the truck and did some damage. It was the same situation. You would think that out of all of those mechanics, at least one person would have noticed they had the wrong hitch installed!

Make sure that when you hook onto a trailer, that you have the proper equipment and corrrect size hitch for whatever situation you are in. Don't be like one of my customers and try to tow a 28' travel trailer on the bumper of his pickup with no brake control, no sway bar, and no equalizer bars!

The same goes for fifth-wheels as well. Make sure the hitch you are using is rated for the trailer you are towing.

Be safe out there!

Casey

[tanker]

Not only the correct size ball, but also the correct weight rating of the ball. There are several balls of the same size but with different ratings. A few people also don't know about crossing the safety chains, I have seen many hooked up parallel, which won't help should it come un coupled! :eek:
Orange county choppers :rolleyes: , maybe father and son had a disagreement just before they left! :eek: They do disagree at times. :D

[Inspector]

To add to the post on being safe I would like to add these observations.

TOWING AND SAFTY


In this forum we talk a lot about the different trailer and truck combinations. We discuss tires and pressures. Trailer braking systems are always a good topic of discussion. We kick around the many different bumper pull and fifth wheel hitches. We want to think that we have the best combinations of systems to drive and tow our rigs with.
Any combination of systems will work as long as they are what we need for a particular combination of systems.
The most important thing to remember is

[tanker]

Amen Denny, You said it all. ;)

[arveetek]

Well said, Sir Inspector!

As far as dangerous towing conditions go, the other day I saw a 40' triple-axle 5th wheel being towed down the highway by a shortbed, 1/2 ton pickup! The front end of the truck was sticking up in the air, the rear of the truck was squatting down, and the trailer was tilted down at such an angle that the rear axle tires looked like they were barely touching the ground. I don't know what they were thinking.

Last summer, on the way to the lake, we got behind a truck pulling an old Airstream, and they were going fairly slow. I thought something seemed odd about the rig, but I couldn't quite figure out what until we rounded a curve. That's when I realized that a 1 ton pickup was towing a bumper pull flatbed, and the Airstream was hooked onto the rear of the flatbed. They were hauling some golf carts on the flatbed. That's right! The flatbed was between the Airstream and the truck. It looked to be about a 16' flatbed trailer. No wonder they were going slow. I backed off and stayed behind them aways.

The worst thing about this is that they are putting other peoples' lives in danger. Just like drunk drivers.

There is an RV salvage yard a few miles from me. They have rows upon rows of wrecked trailers and motorhomes. There are some that were smashed in accidents, some that caught on fire, and some that had a tree fall on them or were damaged in a storm. But, there are an awful lot of trailers that were damaged because they flipped over. There is a whole row of Airstreams, and almost everyone of them is there because they had been rolled over. Now, Airstreams are the best built RV on the road, so I don't think there is a design flaw in the handling characteristics. Rather, I think it would be safe to bet that most of those roll-overs probably were caused due to improper tow rigs, hitches, brakes, or some other reason like that.

Again, it's very important to do your research and make sure you have the safest setup possible!

Casey