RCU Forums - Towing a trailer

Among the several threads on trailers, some posts indicate the subject trailer doesn't have brakes and that they aren't needed for light duty trailers.

Today's lesson on why trailer brakes and break-away boxes are a really good idea occured on the North-bound lanes of I-85, about 10 miles South of hotLanta.

A pickup truck was towing an empty 4'x8' open utility trailer. The sort landscapers might use, with a single ramp. The pickup was in the far right hand lane, with four other lanes to the left (5 lanes wide at that point).

A semi with a 53' trailer was in the next lane to the left, about 100 yards rearward of the pickup truck.

I was in the third (middle) lane, driving a company E-250 van fully loaded with tools/equipment/inventory (right at 8600 GVW). The tractor-trailer was about 200 feet ahead of me and to my right.

A passenger car was in the left most (fifth) lane, to my left more or less even with my van. Another passenger car was ahead of the car to my left, by about 200' (or so). This 'front' car was black (for reference purposes).

A roll-back wrecker with a passenger car on the roll-back was in the fourth lane, a couple hundred yards rearward of my work van and the passenger car two lanes to my left.

The trailer being towed by the pickup started fish-tailing as if it had blown a tire. The driver of the pickup moved over to the shoulder, still at speed. The trailer started hopping back and forth sideways, and bounced off the right hand guardrail a couple of times.

As the pickup and utility trailer slowed they disappeared from my view 'behind' the semi.

In very short order (like, less than 5 seconds that seemed a week long) the trailer parted company with the pickup and got collected by the tractor-trailer, which summarily punted the trailer 90 degrees across the Interstate where it impacted the double center guardrail.

The driver of the black car had less than a second to do something, and to her credit she got all four tires smoking before impacting the guardrail and the errant utility trailer simultaneously. That impact punted the utility trailer -back across- the Interstate where it was once again collected by the tractor-trailer and shoved half-way under the right hand guardrail. The tractor-trailer came to a stop with the utility trailer mostly under the right front fender and bumper.

The black car was stopped against the center guardrail, partially blocking the left most lane.

The passenger car to my left slowed as fast as I did, and had to swerve into the fourth lane to avoid the black car which was on the too-narrow left shoulder.

The wrecker didn't slow as quickly and had nowhere to go except split the distance between me and the car 3/4ths of a lane to my left.

The roll back deck on the wrecker surgically removed the left outside rear-view mirror from my work van. If the wrecker had been three or four inches closer it would have split the van open length-wise, and likely me along with it.

This all happened at 10:05 AM EST. The no-sense-of-humor Fulton County ossifer finally got all the paperwork done and let everyone go their merry way about 1:00 PM.

I didn't enjoy baking in the 96 degree 'breeze' coming off the passing traffic, which of course didn't slow any while passing through what amounted to a debris field.

For whatever reason, the hitch pin fell out of the hitch on the pickup, the draw bar pulled out of the hitch, and the utility trailer did a nose dive to the concrete of the Interstate, which in turn straightened out one of the safety chain hooks and broke the other safety chain hook. At that point in time the utility trailer was a ballistic object.

The total damage was my remote mirror (about $250 in parts plus labor, says FoMoCo), the entire front fiberglass hood, right fender, and bumper on the 2006 Freightliner, along with the radiator/power steering cooler, and a/c condenser on the semi, and one thoroughly mangled Honda Civic.

The utility trailer is repairable.

My nerves should have recovered by the time I get to the bottom of this Ketel One in front of me.

Trailer brakes and a breakaway box, although not absolutely required on light utility trailers, would likely have allowed the driver of the pickup to regain control of the trailer before it became involved in Interstate Pin-Ball.

FWIW.