OK, who was the youngest driver to dump their load in the road? I did it when I was sixteen. Got my picture in the paper too. That was many years ago.
Here's the story.
Like I said, I was sixteen, and working part time at the boat place after school. On one of my few days off from school I went to work for a full day. Soon after arriving the boss man told me to take a rather large boat to a local auto electric shop for outside repair. He told me to hook it up to the car he provided, then told me where to take it.
No problem. I did as I was told. Then I took off.
The interstate was the logical path to take to get to the assigned destination. I was only a mile or so from the shop, and just accelerating on the interstate when things started to go bad. The first thing I felt was the car starting to sway. I looked in the rear view mirror. The boat was moving back and forth behind the car. Not good. In a heartbeat the rear end of the car was following the boat's sway. Not good and getting worse.
In the next half heart beat, the rear end of the car broke loose and I went into a skid. I steered into the skid. So far, so good. The boat went the other way.
Oh crap. I steered the other way. The boat changed direction, and took the car with it. Oh more crap..
In the next half heart beat, the car changed direction and I felt the road shake. Then I came to a stop. The boat was sitting in the road behind me, and I was in the middle lane aiming in the opposite direction from which I was going only seconds before. Real bad day for a rookie.
So, what went wrong?
As I've learned in the ensuing years of towing. Most anything that could be wrong, was. First off, the load was balanced wrong on the trailer. Almost no tonque weight. To make matters worse, the trailer weight exceeded the tow vehicle weight. Improper balance can be overcome somewhat if the trailer is much lighter than the towing vehicle, but not the other way around. Either way is wrong.
To make matters worse, the tow vehicle had terrible suspension for a tow vehicle. It had plenty of power, but was designed for a smooth ride rather than towing.
Therefore, I was doomed before I left the lot. And to make matters worse, the load was not properly secured to the trailer. No tie down straps. I've often heard fools since that day tell me that a heavy load doesn't need tie downs.
Right.
The heavier the load, the more force there is to pull that load off the trailer. Tie the danged thing down, whatever it is. If it can come off, sooner of later, it will.
OK, let's make this story a bit shorter. What went wrong?
Everything.
Improper load displacement. No tie downs. Improper tow vehicle. Inexperienced driver.
Yet I was following directions from an experienced and mature employer. His explanation? I should have stomped on the gas to straighten it out.
Yeah, right, I should have speeded up, but to me, the only thing I wanted to do was to get the nightmare stopped.
To this day I respect a towed load and encourage proper load distribution, as well as proper load to tow vehicle matchup.
What scares the heck out of me is the combination of these new, impressive tow vehicles on the market. These new trucks have mega horses and the torque to pull many tons of tralered weight. And they can pull these weights in excess of the posted speed limits without breaking a sweat. Yep, that's scary. Give them a wide berth.
