Pulling Vehicles out of a Ditch in the Snow

[goddom]

We had a decent snow storm a week or so ago and as I was coming home and pulling onto my road there were two vehicles in the ditch and a Dodge Dakota was trying to pull one out. I stopped and let them know I can bring my tractor to try and help. Its a compact LS tractor so I wasn't sure how helpful it would be. I think the biggest advantage was just how much more maneuverable it is compared to the truck. We were able to get them both out in the end.

I do not have a lot of experience extracting vehicles but you can see what we did in the video below.

Snow Rescue - Pulling 2 Vehicles out of a Ditch with my Tractor - YouTube

 

[oosik]

In previous years I've used my 4WD vehicle to pull my share of cars/truck out of stuck situations. Then I had a chance to talk to my State Farm representative. Their take on this situation - from the moment the tow cable from my vehicle to the stuck vehicle is connected - my State Farm vehicle insurance policy is no longer in effect.

The vehicle insurance policy is to cover normally occurring situations. Pulling/towing a stuck vehicle is a job for a commercial towing agency and requires some form of commercial insurance policy.

My tractor is covered by my homeowners policy and only while the tractor is on my property. Same for the tractor - it's not licensed as a commercial tow vehicle and not insured as such.

Sooooo ......... now I will stop and see if I can assist by using my cell phone to call relatives, a towing company, their insurance company, etc.

 

[square1]

^^^ yep, the days of being a good guy and saving folks the price of a wrecker call have passed.
Without the proper gear there's no good way to even connect to most of today's vehicles and even with the proper gear it's too easy to do damage.

 

[PILOON]

I've done my share of 'good guy'!
Always have a HD braided tow rope (as used for sling loads) and long jumper cables in my AWD Kia.
Generally I have the 'client' do the hook up at his end.
Also I do a waiver sort of speech B4 pulling.

So far this winter I have only 'extracted' 4 vehicles but sure there's more to come as the city plow tends to plow over the ditches and many are deep.

My Kia AWD with track lock is simply awesome plus I'm shod with studded winters.
I just like to help.

Where I to get sued? well I'd use my waiver defense, plus non commercial and his doing actual hook up.
Nope, don't lose any sleep and will continue being a nice guy.

Must say that 'sling' braided rope is just great.
With good traction it stretches a bit like a big elastic and almost plucks a decent sized SUV that was well off at about a 45 deg angle.
Helped a bit that I was slightly downhill from him.

Have done this for probably 10-12 years and never a comeback.
Lucky? perhaps.

 

[MossRoad]

We had a decent snow storm a week or so ago and as I was coming home and pulling onto my road there were two vehicles in the ditch and a Dodge Dakota was trying to pull one out. I stopped and let them know I can bring my tractor to try and help. Its a compact LS tractor so I wasn't sure how helpful it would be. I think the biggest advantage was just how much more maneuverable it is compared to the truck. We were able to get them both out in the end.

I do not have a lot of experience extracting vehicles but you can see what we did in the video below.

Snow Rescue - Pulling 2 Vehicles out of a Ditch with my Tractor - YouTube

Nice of you to help them out. :thumbsup:. Unfortunately agreeing with the others as to liability these days.

 

[MossRoad]

 

[MossRoad]

 

[goddom]

I take your point, but I guess I feel for the most part the liability is limited. They can only sue you for the value of the property/damage. I would probably think twice about pulling out a Lambo or something because then the samage could be in significant. My bigger concern would be personal injury since that can really rack up the dollars. I guess I feel most people are going to be good people.

Couple points in this particular case that might help give a bit of perspective. The Jeep I was pulling out got stuck trying to pull out the Avalanche so I was pretty sure he would appreciate the help. The Avalanche was a... sh!tbox.

Second - a tow tuck may not be available until the next day. When a snow like this comes down and drops 2-4" within 2 hours the accidents pile up and all the tow trucks are booked. That is partly why I decided to help them out.

Liability is certainly a concern and I was a little worried about that and I was probably more worried about getting hit by a car on the road.

Thanks everyone for the comments.

 

[k0ua]

If I may offer a couple of pieces of totally unsolicited advice.

Pulling backward with your front end loader and bucket components in a "heavy" pull like you were doing in the video is usually not recommended. It puts a lot of stress on the front end loader components and their mountings. They are made for pushing not pulling. I will do light pulls like pulling a grape vine out of a tree with my FEL, but I will never do a heavy pull like that with it. I will only do heavy pulls with my swinging drawbar which is located at the very bottom of the tractor. This accomplishes two things, one the swinging drawbar is MADE for heavy pulling and with it being on the absolute lowest point of the tractor chassis there is less chance for a tractor overturning. Also with the vehicle being lower than the drawbar up on the road would be, it puts some downward force on the drawbar which increases traction on the large rear tires of the tractor by the downward vector of the strap.

I keep a clevis mounted in the hole of the drawbar and this would have been ideal for running the strap thru its smooth contours and the other end of the strap back to the other pull point of the jeep or the avalanche. Again I cringed several times when I saw you pull with the bucket backwards and even at times with the loader elevated. That is a recipe for disaster.

But with all that said you prevailed. And apparently LS tractors and their loader components are very tough as you mentioned no damage. My only goal here is not to pee on your accomplishment, but to try and help and educate you and others about the method you went about helping those folks. Best Regards, James.

 

[goddom]

lol, I have seen those videos! Luckily I know where the tow straps were going so I was confident that wouldn't happen

 

[goddom]

If I may offer a couple of pieces of totally unsolicited advice.

Pulling backward with your front end loader and bucket components in a "heavy" pull like you were doing in the video is usually not recommended. It puts a lot of stress on the front end loader components and their mountings. They are made for pushing not pulling. I will do light pulls like pulling a grape vine out of a tree with my FEL, but I will never do a heavy pull like that with it. I will only do heavy pulls with my swinging drawbar which is located at the very bottom of the tractor. This accomplishes two things, one the swinging drawbar is MADE for heavy pulling and with it being on the absolute lowest point of the tractor chassis there is less chance for a tractor overturning. Also with the vehicle being lower than the drawbar up on the road would be, it puts some downward force on the drawbar which increases traction on the large rear tires of the tractor by the downward vector of the strap.

I keep a clevis mounted in the hole of the drawbar and this would have been ideal for running the strap thru its smooth contours and the other end of the strap back to the other pull point of the jeep or the avalanche. Again I cringed several times when I saw you pull with the bucket backwards and even at times with the loader elevated. That is a recipe for disaster.

But with all that said you prevailed. And apparently LS tractors and their loader components are very tough as you mentioned no damage. My only goal here is not to pee on your accomplishment, but to try and help and educate you and others about the method you went about helping those folks. Best Regards, James.

Thanks for the advice! In the future I won't do it that way. I had a counter weight on my tracker and no drawbar. I think I will get one and have it mounted at all times in the future.

 

[4570Man]

^^^ yep, the days of being a good guy and saving folks the price of a wrecker call have passed.
Without the proper gear there's no good way to even connect to most of today's vehicles and even with the proper gear it's too easy to do damage.

Why every vehicle doesn’t have tow hooks is beyond me. And a good one not some dinky crap that 5 percent of hooks actually fit in. On the subject of pulling vehicles I’ve found my mini excavator to be quiet good at it. I’ve pulled my own truck 4 times with it and it can anchor the blade and pull with full power of the boom vs sliding around and barley pulling in the poor conditions that led to getting stuck to start with like tractors and vehicles do.

 

[k0ua]

Why every vehicle doesn’t have tow hooks is beyond me. And a good one not some dinky crap that 5 percent of hooks actually fit in. On the subject of pulling vehicles I’ve found my mini excavator to be quiet good at it. I’ve pulled my own truck 4 times with it and it can anchor the blade and pull with full power of the boom vs sliding around and barley pulling in the poor conditions that led to getting stuck to start with like tractors and vehicles do.

I am always amazed in what excavators will do. They are very powerful machines indeed.

 

[Jstpssng]

Years ago I was awakened at 5:30 Sunday AM by a pounding on the door... some idget had gone off the road and wanted to use my phone to call his buddies. Like a dumbbell I offered to help him out. I should have stayed in bed. It turns out they were up fishing from NH, he'd left the bar with a woman the night before and didn't know where he was. He was way down over the banking and my 2wd pickup wouldn't pull him so I used it as an anchor point for my come along. After dragging him the length of the cable I set out to reset it; he jumped into his pickup and started rocking it, trying to get out. Once he realized it wouldn't work he stopped, at which point I unhooked my chain, through everything in my truck and left him there. It wasn't until the next month I discovered he'd made a long distance call from my phone; and also bent the crossmember in my pickup.
That was about 40 years ago, and the last time I ever hooked onto somebody with a chain.

 

[MossRoad]

I am always amazed in what excavators will do. They are very powerful machines indeed.

Hydraulics are amazingly powerful. I was surprised I could bend my forks with my little PT425, but I did.

 

[k0ua]

Thanks for the advice! In the future I won't do it that way. I had a counter weight on my tracker and no drawbar. I think I will get one and have it mounted at all times in the future.

You should be able to get one from LS and there should be huge mounting bolts there already to mount it to even if the tractor did not come equipped with one, they are all made to have them. Then get a good big clevis to go into the hole and you will be all set. I have pulled out a 24 foot UPS truck with my little Kioti which is about the same size as your tractor. I pulled him uphill, but I had enough chains to put together so that I could get about 80 foot away and get the tractor up on a flat spot. It made all the difference in the world, the tractor grunted a bit but never even spun a tire, and just slowly pulled the big hulk out.

Another thing when you have a downward pull on the drawbar that adds traction to the large rear tires, but if you still spin, remember you are removing weight from the front tires, and sometimes all it takes to balance things out a bit and restore some traction to the front tires is to scoop up a bucket of snow if that is what you have or a bucket of gravel or dirt even better to get those tires to bite a bit better. Also unlock your split brakes if you have them and watch your own rear tires if they start to slip, apply a bit of brake pressure to the tire that is slipping can help also. Or use the differential lock. But I prefer to use the brake pressure to even the traction between the rear tires. Just push on the brake very gently. That will make the spider gears in the differential stop rotating on their jackshafts and give an equal pull on the tires.

 

[k0ua]

Hydraulics are amazingly powerful. I was surprised I could bend my forks with my little PT425, but I did.

Yes, if used properly hydraulics are a wonderful thing. Of course you can wad things up pretty quickly with them too.

 

[LouNY]

We had a decent snow storm a week or so ago and as I was coming home and pulling onto my road there were two vehicles in the ditch and a Dodge Dakota was trying to pull one out. I stopped and let them know I can bring my tractor to try and help. Its a compact LS tractor so I wasn't sure how helpful it would be. I think the biggest advantage was just how much more maneuverable it is compared to the truck. We were able to get them both out in the end.

I do not have a lot of experience extracting vehicles but you can see what we did in the video below.

Snow Rescue - Pulling 2 Vehicles out of a Ditch with my Tractor - YouTube

Interesting tow job with a small tractor.
As far as pulling with a front loader,
I have pulled many times with a loader using the loader lift and bucket curl to pull more then I could pull with a traction pull.
In your case I would have been tempted to use less strap and get closer so as to use some lift while pulling.
That said I would not attempt to yank someone out with the loader when it was not a straight line pull.

As far as pulling people out of ditches I keep a chain and or strap in the truck and the tractors all the time.
I seldom connect the chain to the stuck vehicle, I let the owner do that usually.
If the vehicle doesn't have a decent easily accessible tow point it will be extremely unusual for me to get down and try to crawl under and get a good hook.
I'm to old to get down and then try and get back up :laughing: in the mud or snow.
What normally makes my decision on wither or not to pull some one out depends a lot on their attitude and behavior.
The vehicle condition and what the circumstances are that they are stuck.
The main road that leads to my road is the road to a ski area, smart mouthed yuppies with fancy cars and bald tires,
I'll stop make sure that no ones hurt and that they have cell service and then go home.
If they are a local or even a tourist that had trouble getting up the hills because the roads are slippery,
I'll usually give them a hand.

Also I have a sturdy tow hitch that I can easily hookup to that allows me to have considerable puling force as it is high enough that
any load is pulling down on my tractor.
Does that violate the safety police only pull by the drawbar, Yep.

 

[paulfun9]

If I may offer a couple of pieces of totally unsolicited advice.

Pulling backward with your front end loader and bucket components in a "heavy" pull like you were doing in the video is usually not recommended. It puts a lot of stress on the front end loader components and their mountings. They are made for pushing not pulling. I will do light pulls like pulling a grape vine out of a tree with my FEL, but I will never do a heavy pull like that with it. I will only do heavy pulls with my swinging drawbar which is located at the very bottom of the tractor. This accomplishes two things, one the swinging drawbar is MADE for heavy pulling and with it being on the absolute lowest point of the tractor chassis there is less chance for a tractor overturning. Also with the vehicle being lower than the drawbar up on the road would be, it puts some downward force on the drawbar which increases traction on the large rear tires of the tractor by the downward vector of the strap.

I keep a clevis mounted in the hole of the drawbar and this would have been ideal for running the strap thru its smooth contours and the other end of the strap back to the other pull point of the jeep or the avalanche. Again I cringed several times when I saw you pull with the bucket backwards and even at times with the loader elevated. That is a recipe for disaster.

But with all that said you prevailed. And apparently LS tractors and their loader components are very tough as you mentioned no damage. My only goal here is not to pee on your accomplishment, but to try and help and educate you and others about the method you went about helping those folks. Best Regards, James.

This basically echoes my thoughts with just one small exception.
If you had used the drawbar and also filled the loader with a little wieght you might have been very surprised with the results. I have pulled many out of the ditches around here, it痴 almost impressive when the transfer of wieght is onto the rear tires and your yanking trucks 3 times your wieght out without so much as a hiccup.

 

[bcp]

Somewhere on YouTube is a video of a recovery. The tractor is pulling from a raised bucket. The tractor turns slightly while pulling, causing it to roll over from a side force up high.

Bruce