A friend of mine lost a trailer the other day. It's a fourteen thousand GVW dump trailer.
Here in north Texas we are in a drought that's reached almost biblical proportions. Our local lake is something like fifteen to eighteen feet low, 85 billion gallons shy of normal elevation. Between the drought and the it's effect on the clay soil our roads in the country are a delight. Every cut ever made whether it's for utilities or drainage is a visit to Disneyland at any speed. Bridges are like rail road approaches. It's a mess.
Typical morning of running late and trying to make sure he had everything on the truck for his job of the day. Evidently he didn't close the coupler. He hit a bridge, felt something different, looked in the mirror, saw more trailer than he should. He hit his brakes easy and started bringing everything to a stop. Then he reached down and manually operated the trailer brakes to keep the trailer off the truck. Safety chains broke and the trailer ended up okay in the middle of a pasture.
The coupler is a two and five sixteenths. The safety chains are the good ones. I know. I made the trailer. I installed the safety chains. The only thing I can figure is he locked down the brakes and they caught a bump. The trailer was loaded btw.
I believe I've had four lost trailer events in forty plus years of towing. That's all that I can remember anyway. Two of those involved a small trailer that I'd made that was enclosed with utility boxes. It was a custom welding rig. I had a pintle hitch on it. Twice at low speed I had it disconnect at the same railroad crossing. Both times it was low speed and somehow it hit just wrong and opened the pintle. It's something I've never see except with that pintle and that trailer under those circumstances.
The first time I assumed I hadn't closed the pintle which caused me to always double check the coupling after that. The second time I knew I had closed it for sure and ever since I use a giant safety pin that you get at welding supply store. My trailer I use all the time is a pintle and to this day I won't move without that safety pin in place.
Both of those times I felt the trailer uncouple and caught it with the truck and chains, no harm, no foul.
The scariest loose trailer event involved a Bobcat skid steer I'd rented from Nations, their trailer with a Bulldog coupler, heavy heavy evening traffic, and other people loading the trailer and binding it down so I could get the tractor back before closing time.
Three lanes, I was on the inside, forty or forty five mile zone, packed with cars when I felt something wrong in the middle of a curve. A glance in the mirror told me I had more trailer than I should have.
I put on the brakes, very gently, felt the trailer touch the truck, and brought us all to a stop. They'd loaded the tractor where it was just tongue heavy enough to keep the tongue and jack off the concrete. So I popped the binders loose on the tractor backed it up just enough to lift the tongue. Backed the truck under the tongue. Pulled the tractor forward to couple the trailer and add tongue weight. I bound down the tractor and secured the trailer properly. We made it to Nations on time. It took me little longer to do it than to tell it. It was one of those situations where everyone was driving by all irritated but a couple of laborers stopped by to help me line up the couple where I backed the truck up.
Again, no harm, no foul.
The last time involved the two inch insert in the hitch and two and five sixteenths coupler. I was in a hurry and hooked up. Discovered my error when I tried to put the tractor on the trailer. So again, no harm, no foul. I hadn't left my bud's place, his trailer.
