Trailer Came Loose

[firemanpat2910]

I had my 2 5/16 ball on my truck at work one morning. I had some calls to make so I tossed one of my workers the keys and told him to hook up to the big trailer. Later when I was pulling a 12000# forklift and a 1200# machine down the road I heard the destintive sound of a 2" ball in a 2 5/16 coupler.
every bump in the road I felt my heart beat. The time it took to pull over seemed like eternity. Turns out the little trailer was in the way of the big trailer,so my (ex)worker switched balls moved the little trailer then got a cell phone call and was distracted and hooked up the big trailer. I learned lessons that day, 1.Nobody hooks anything to my truck except me
2. too much tounge weight is not always a bad thing. oh and keep an extra pair of boxers in the truck just in case

 

[schmism]

2 stories from me

first
my dad has a little 5' colemn trailer we use a lot on camping trips and stuff for hauling gear.

anyway we were on a trip and we happen to notice a weird noise from the hitch evertime we go over a bump or start/stop. So i get out check everthing, hitch is latched down, chains on etc.

so while i walk next to the truck i tell dad to start/stop while i watch the hitch to seee if i can see what the problem is.

turns out the nut on the ball had started to back off and the hole ball was loose and allowing it to shift back and forth.

2nd i witnessed a pickup comming to a stop on a divided highway stop, and the john boat he was pulling decided it didnt want to stop, "poped" off the hitch and proceeded to careen into the ditch and nose plant into "our side" side of the median ditch.

the guys got out of the pickup and kinda scratched there head like ... huh.. ho'd a thunk....

 

[Parttimer]

About ten years ago, when my wife and i had just purchased a 30 foot fifth wheel camper, I had put the hitch into the back of the truck rested it into the rails, then it started pouring, ran in the house. Next morning hooked up checked th connection to the trailler etc., not remembering that I had not put in the pins from the hitch to the rails. Made it about 100 miles when I was coming to a stop on a decline which had alot of bumps, looked back and the whole trailer was tipping up with the hitch attached to the trailer. Scared the living day lights out of me. It fell back into the truck bed safely. The only damage was when it landed it cut the wires. Luckily it was in front of a walmart. I never put the hitch in now unless it is completed.

Also, when we travel, over the past ten years, I have found that people think it is funny to unhitch the hitch bar, while we are in a store, so I lock what i can, and still double check before we resume our travels.

 

[HammerFour]

I had someone let all the air out of my tandem axle boat trailer tires one day while I was at the lake with some friends......funny, real funny.

Since I had taken the 12v air compressor out of the truck I got to drive all the way home and get it, come back, blow up all the tires on the trailer before I could get back to loading the boat up and going home for dinner...

Oh and we had an old 17 foot wood runabout ( 1950's era ) we bought from a neighbor and restored, it was a nice little boat. The hitch on it was one of those that you twist the knob to tighten it on the ball, I didn't get it quite tight enough and it popped off going over a speed bump going to the ramp at the lake one day...luckily the boat didn't weigh much and my Dad's Blazer had the spare on the back door for the boat to nudge against while we got it stopped.....

 

[Thomas]

Very sad to read of such events....prayers and wishes to family.

 

[sparkkky]

Here near OKC a trailer came loose and killed two people riding a motorcycle a couple of weeks ago.

 

[stevenf]

Hi everyone, I've been watching this thread for a couple of days and some of the stories are really frightening. When I was a kid in Boy Scouts we had saved up money thru popcorn sales, spaghetti dinners and a host of other fund raising and bought the troop 6 new Quatchita aluminum canoes and a great canoe trailer to haul them on. The scoutmaster was a real dufus and when he hooked up the trailer he set the already closed and pinned hitch down on the ball and took off, our weekend canoeing campout ended less then a block from the scout hut when he hit the first bump and our beautiful new canoes and trailer turned left and ran thru a privacy fence. All the canoes sustained some damage the trailer was totaled and our service project for the month was to rebuild a privacy fence. To make matters worse this was back in the days before there were seatbelt laws and riding in the back of pickups was a normal everyday occurence and his bed was full of scouts including me.
I learned a valueable lesson that day and luckily no one was hurt as it was in downtown San Antonio on a busy city streat, I'll never forget just before the trailer turned left it passed by our right side and made a 90 in front of his truck as he slowed down to see what we were hollering about.
My lesson and one I'm surprised no one has mentioned is religiously after you set the coupler on the ball and latch it regardless of what type mechanism does the latching Always crank the jackstand back up and see if the trailer coupled to the tow vehicle will raise the back of the vehicle up, you don't need to raise the back tires just see if it'll lift it a bit. If you do this every single time you tow anything you will cut your accidental decoupling to just about 0. Sure you can have a coupler failure once in a great while but at least you'll know for sure when you left it was latched properly, you had the right ball on it when you started out and the coupler is adjusted properly, I've found numerous trailers over the years that even with the right ball mounted if the coupler isn't adjusted correctly it'll still pop off when you jack it up while coupled, one good bump and they'd have been kissing my tailgate or worse.
Steve

 

[sandman2234]

Standard practice with tractor trailers, when you couple a trailer, is to put it in low gear and "tug" to check the connection. It isn't the best way, but beats not checking at all. I tugged on one, and it came loose, so I reconnected and tugged twice. It held, so off I went. I got close to a scale house filled with people when it decide to come loose. It folded up the landing gears and slid about 10 feet.
Can you imagine the dozen people in that small building watching as a trailer came sliding at them, directly at the only exit in the building.
Luckily it stopped and the only damage it did was a gouge in the asphalt.
I think about that and what could have happened every time I see that scar in the asphalt.
Found out later that another driver had dropped a trailer a week before and blamed it on the fifth wheel. When I dropped the second one in a week with the same truck, they sent it out to be rebuilt.
David from jax

 

[hockeyhead]

1.Nobody hooks anything to my truck except me
:

I have a similar story, 8-9 years I'm on my way home from work, call the wife, her and the kids are at a friends house, I stop by there. Then we decide to take out our boat, so me and my buddy jump in my car , drive to my house. The plan we made on the way there was, he will hook the boat to my truck, I run in the house and change, then hit the gas station and party store, our wives and kids will meet us at the launch.
I chuck him my keys on the way in the house. I come out, my truck is sitting there with the boat hooked up, he's sitting in the passenger seat of my truck, engine running. I jump in, off we go for an enjoyable evening on the water. ( I'm sure you can guess the rest of the story)
Your right, he never had it latched on the ball. About two miles from my house we had to cross some RR tracks, it came off, chains held, I slammed on the brakes and 3900lb of boat and trailer plowed into the back of my truck.
I had are hardtime with that, he felt pretty bad.
I never checked it when I came out of the house and I should have. It felt different pulling it and I didn't stop to find out why.
$1600 repair on the truck at another friend's Maco, new tailgate and step bumper, paint, and bed fixup.
the boat and trailer were fine.
luckily I was only doing 20-25mph crossing those tracks
lesson learned, and we are still close friends
I double, triple check everything, and make sure it's in good shape

 

[RayH]

Standard practice with tractor trailers, when you couple a trailer, is to put it in low gear and "tug" to check the connection.

I ALWAYS do five checks when I back under a trailer.
1) Audible - roll the window down and listen for the "clink" when the jaws close.
2) Tug test.
3) make sure there no gap between plate and fifth wheel.
4) make sure the handle is in.
5) visually check the jaws.

If I leave the truck/trailer to take a break, when I get back, I always check the handle before starting back down the road.

Ive dropped a couple when I was spotting trailers. Now that I drive, it scares the daylights out of me to think what could happen.

 

[mikegt4]

A few years ago there was a fellow taking his Oliver 77 home from a tractor show near my house. Where the road goes down a steep hill (fortunetly straight) I heard a crash. When I got there the guy was standing in the road surveying the mess. The tractor had rolled forward off the trailer, hit the pickup and broke the hitch (bumper) off. The Oliver was stratling the trailer tongue which was about 50 ft. behind the truck. He had driven the tractor onto the trailer, left it in gear and engaged the brake pedal locks. He then ran one 1 1/2" nylon tie down strap from one side of the trailer, over the tractor's hood to the other side of the trailer. He couldn't figure out how this could have had happened !!!

 

[Bird]

He couldn't figure out how this could have had happened !!!

Just no clues, huh?

 

[bones1]

What a dingleberry

 

[sandman2234]

If you want to add the other steps, I also listen to the double bump from the plate hitting the front edge and then leveling out under the trailer. That keeps the back of the cab from getting bent.
I didn't figure most people wanted to be bored with all the steps of tractor trailer instructions. (TT101).I was also a spotter at the time this happened at a local paper mill.
David from jax

 

[LBrown59]

Bird:

It is sad that some are so inconsiderate of the safety of others. As I travel on the interstate I see more and more individuals pulling trailers that are an accident waiting to happen. I try and put as much distance as possible between their vehicle and mine. At a rest area I overheard a Highway Weights Officer receiving verbal abuse from an individual being cited for an unsafe trailer-tow-hook up. At a gas stop one time an individual pulled in driving a Ford F-150 towing a trailer so large and overloaded the rear bumper on the truck struck the pavement/ground at the slighest bump. Driving an automobile above the speed limit is one thing, being passed when doing this by an individual pulling a suicide truck trailer combo is another.

I was on my way into town bout an hour ago and passed a pick up coming out from town that was left of center in a sharp curve about 3/4 of a mile down the road from me.
It was a rickety looking older Ford pulling a Trailer with something like a JD 350 or 450 Dozer on it.

 

[LBrown59]

Do you think it is just inconsideration, or do some people just not get it? I've got a brother-in-law that hauls around junky old trailers behind junky old trucks. No chains, no lights, hitch about 1/2 works. I can't decide if it's laziness, stupidity or what. I'm leaning toward stupidity. If you say something about the condition of his equipment you get kind of a blank stare. Seems to be normal behavior for some other people I've seen towing unsafe and junky trailers, too.

Some people are just plain stupid.
Others are to ignorant to know they're stupid.
People just aren't like they were 30 40 50 Yrs ago.
There's been a big attitude change for the worse.
To many Nut Case out there.

 

[Iowachild]

My experience losing a trailer was back in 1977. Twenty-three years old, green as a stick and working out on my companie's crude oil pipeline. I was driving a Dodge crew cab pick-up pulling a single axle trailer with a Cushman Trackster on the trailer. The trailer and trackster were rented equipment and in rough shape. Fortunately I was on a back country road with no other traffic when I felt something weird and looked in the mirror to see the trailer w/trackster weaving around and too far behind to still be attached. About that time the trailer swerved hard to the left and ended up in the ditch with the tongue buried in the bank. After we got everything out of the ditch we discovered the coupler had come apart and the safety chains snapped like they were made of plastic. Thankfully no one was hurt!!

Now I keep a close eye on my own equipment and any other trailers I might haul, checking all hardware for condition and tightness.

 

[bx23barry]

<People just aren't like they were 30 40 50 Yrs ago.
There's been a big attitude change for the worse.
To many Nut Case out there.>

There were just as many nutcases just not as many folks around to find them out.

 

[Bird]

There were just as many nutcases just not as many folks around to find them out.

And we didn't have the kind of communications technology we now have so we didn't hear about everything that happened.

 

[Slamfire]

The first trailer I ever pulled, was a homemade job, haulin' a 14' Crysler trihull. When I bought it I noticed it had a cinder block restin' on the tounge. When I lifted it off the tounge started to raise up. I held it down by hand, and hooked it to the ball on my truck. On the way home an 18 wheeler came by doin' about 70 mph. Since I was goin' less than 55, the trailer went into a high speed wobble. The trailer was up on the left wheel, then the right. The tounge was a section of water pipe inserted into the next larger size pipe, and when I got home it was bent. I found a piece of seamless pipe of the same diameter and wore out a couple of drill bits, drillin' the two holes that held the carrier. Then, on the advice of a neighbor I sawed off the combination bow bumper/winch mount and we inched the boat forward until we had 150lbs of tounge weight, and rewelded the bow bumper. Things went a lot smoother after that! 8-}