If you are pulling a trailer, slow the heck down!

[Slave to the Phone]

Just because your over sized truck/SUV will pull your toy hauler 80 mph up a twisty turny mountain, doesn't mean you should do it. I drive from Phoenix up the I17 every day. Traffic is never stopped because of a 2 car accident, its stopped because someone in pick up truck or SUV was driving too fast, lost control of the trailer they only pull a couple of times a year, spun out and ended upside down.

Yesterday's accident had a man and a woman, 2 kids and 2 dogs on the side of the road.

Idiot, you could have killed your whole family just because you HAD to get there 10 minutes faster.

Slow the flock down!!!

[wolfie]

Was the driver of the SUV Mack Heath? After all, according to Old Blue Eyes, "Just a jacknife has Mack Heath".

[katzklaw]

oh i could tell all kinds of stories about people having no f-ing clue how to drive their RVs of various sizes and shapes....

as for myself when moving from one park to another... i haul with an old truck (1978 Ford), so for the sake of better fuel mileage and less wear and tear i keep it around 55-60 even when the posted limit is 70 or so...my truck just isn't tuned or geared to go faster for extended periods of time... people just go around me... and if i don't feel safe for whatever reason... road conditions, weather, incline, turns, bumps, or just plain lack of familiarity with an area, i slow down till i feel safe, and people just gonna have to deal with it.

[An Haddock]

I remember a long time ago I worked for a non-profit company and we were all headed to some campsite-type area for a company bonding day sort of thing.


Anyway, we're driving south on Route 95 in philly (probably one of the busiest highways along the East Coast) and ahead of us was a pickup hauling a trailer.

After following it for a couple of minutes we started to see sparks shooting out from behind the truck. We're all going at least 65 MPH.

Then we notice the truck is getting farther away but the trailer is getting closer to us. We slow down to almost a complete stop (as does everyone around us) as the trailer drifts back and finally moves over to the left side of the highway, bouncing off a concrete divider and coming to a stop. Apparently the trailer hitch broke, then the safety chain broke, and everyone in the vicinity was lucky they didn't take a trailer to the face. Good thing there was a center divider, too, because imagine if the thing drifted into oncoming traffic.

[catcul]

I was only going 20 MPH when the trailer I was towing came loose. I'd rather not think what would have happened if I was going faster.

If you're wondering, my mother sold her truck two months ago.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I was driving up to Philly on I-95 once with my friend Sam, heading to a wrestling show. Sam was expressing his interest in becoming a pro wrestler and was discussing gimmick ideas (i.e., characters). He was talking about a deliberately-controversial one he had in mind wherein his bad-guy character would dress up like a Nazi or a Columbine-style shooter, while I'm desperately trying to tell him "That's a REALLY bad idea."

Ahead of us, meanwhile, was a pick-up hauling a little trailer with what looked like a homemade lid. The lid had been secured with a single latch, and had been foolishly attached with the hinges at the back of the trailer-- so the air-flow was catching under this flimsily-attached lid and rattling at it.

Throughout Sam's discussion of his really in poor choice wrestling gimmick, I'm keeping an eye on this, so when the lid comes off, I've already backed off enough that I can swerve around the lid as it lands on the tarmac, and pass the truck as it pulls to the side.

Sam went quiet as that lid came off and as I swerved onto the shoulder to avoid the lid, then looked heavenward and said, "Okay, God, I take the hint, it's a bad idea."

[catcul]

My dad has never driven over 60 MPH when he was towing a trailer. It was a good thing when he had a flat tire on the trailer in two separate incidents.

I was driving home when there was a truck towing a trailer with a car on it. The driver was going 80 when the trailer's tire blew. He pulled over immediately.

You'd think that someone who tows a trailer for a living would not drive that fast.

[notalwaysright]

Slightly off topic, but when we used to camp a lot we always had trailers and used really out of the way campgrounds. Well, I say campgrounds, they were basically just cleared areas in the woods/sand. How many rigs did we see stuck in the mud, sand or snow? Many! Yet the rest of us managed to get through. Huh, I guess it was the way our group drove, where we drove, and so on. Not that we never had trouble, but it was rare, and we didn't stand around staring at the truck like it would magically get unstuck.

[Slave to the Phone]

When I see someone pulling a trailer in the slow lane, I just pass them in the left lane. They are being careful, safe drivers. Its the ones going way faster than they should in the left lane that bother me. They are the ones who will end up being in an accident and maybe hurting other people. I have many bad words for them.

A while back, I was driving into town and saw someone in a pick-up pulling a trailer in the oncoming left lane. Suddenly, the trailer detached from the truck, started to pass it in the medium, then did a slow and very graceful roll.

I'd guess that people who pull trailers on a regular basis know to check their hitches and tire pressure on a regular basis. They know what their equipment does and their safe limits.

My Roadkill rant was about those jerks who only hitch their trailers up a couple times a year and then drive their trucks like they could without the extra load, no cares about endangering innocent folks, no cares about their trailer swinging back and forth between 3 lanes of traffic, the only important person to them is them. They are Special Snowflakes who just have to get there first.

[RealUnimportant]

When I was growing up we'd go on camping/caravanning trips, and the speed limit for cars towing trailers was 50MPH. Recently it's been upped to 60 so artics don't have to overtake them, but it's still lower than the regular limit on motorways - yet I never fail to see people zipping by in the far lane overtaking everyone in sight! IIRC taking a trailer into that lane is an offence even under the limit...

[An Haddock]

Reminds me of a bit by Jeff Foxworthy I love:

Me and my dad would be driving and he'd get pulled over by a cop.

"Do you know why I pulled you over, sir? No, sir, I don't want a cold beer. I don't think you need one, either. It's regarding the vehicle you're towing. No, sir, it's not illegal to tow a boat but we do require that you put it on a trailer. Can you ask your friends to step out of the boat, please, sir."

[Sunshine]

My last accident was in stop and go traffic on 820 in dfw. If any of y'all have been to the area you know that 820 is almost always under some form of construction. Anyway, I was going from North Richland Hills where my aunt lives to West Ft. Worth where MissyRed lived at the time. It's rush hour and I stopped short and the guy pulling the trailer behind me did too....but was following too close and the momentum from his extra weight slammed his truck into my aztek. It was awful and I hate having trucks pulling trailers behind me now.

[Minflick]

There's a 'lovely' freeway in my area of the Great Bay Area south of San Francisco. It's called Highway 17, and it's much safer than it was 30 odd years ago, but it's still a road that needs respect and a willingness to slow the hell down. UP hill over the county line and then back down again to sea level, with smaller swoops up and down, and multiple big honking left or right hand curves. I have a SIL who refuses to drive it at all. I do it when I have to, and I don't love it.

The safest time I ever had on it, and the easiest was the time I was a chaperon for the kid's junior high choir, but I didn't fit on the bus, so I followed in our personal car. I followed right behind the Big Yellow School Bus, which didn't get much over 30 on a road where the average speed is 50-60. Being a Big Yellow Bus, it's highly visible, and nobody expects any kind of speed out of them, even down hill. So, they see the Big Yellow School Bus up ahead, and they pull into the other lane way before they get even with the bus. Which means, for me following the bus, that NOBODY is tailgating me, or honking at me. And because we're going so slowly, all those curves that centrifugal force pulls on you when you go at the normal flow of traffic, and I find somewhat hair raising, are EASY PEASY indeed. It was bliss. We were the Big Yellow Plague, and everybody avoided us!