Almost lost a trailer

[MN-Mark]

This afternoon we were leaving a friend’s cabin in northern Wisconsin and I went to hitch up my snowmobile trailer. I backed the truck up to the trailer and my friend lowered the hitch onto the ball and hooked up the safety cables and lights. When he said I was good to go we left. About a mile down the road the hitch jumped off the ball. Luckily, we were going pretty slow, there was no traffic, and the trailer tracked straight behind the truck. The safety cables held and did their job. Scared the heck out of me!

My friend has a travel trailer, boat trailer, and at least 3 utility trailers and tows often so I trusted everything was done correctly. Lessons learned: 1: in the future I will personally hitch any trailer attached to a vehicle I am driving myself. 2: if I ever get distracted or interrupted I will start over. 3: if anyone else does anything I will double check their work. I’ll double check my work too, every time.

We were extremely fortunate that no one was hurt and nothing was damaged.

Be careful out there!

Mark

PS. The trails were pretty good!

 

[txloser]

Scary stuff. Been there with a FW doing 65. No safety chains, but my tailgate caved and captured the king pin. That kept it with me till I could pull over, clean out my shorts and put it all back together.

You’ll never have that happen again. What doesn’t kill you makes you safer. Lol.

 

[WhittleBurner]

Just goes to prove even the most experienced can mess up. Those 3 rules will save you plenty of heartache

 

[Riverbug]

This happened to my brother when I hooked up a trailer for him. I cannot for the life of me imagine how it was not connected correctly. Pulled boats, utility, and travel trailers for years. He came with his SUV to pick up my utility trailer loaded with stuff for my parents. I hooked it up. He says he saw me do it. A half mile up the road the hitch came off, the tongue went up high enough so that when he stopped it went through the rear window of the SUV. Obviously, the trailer was light on the tongue. I felt terrible. Anyway, check and check again.

 

[Dnmatt]

Many years ago when we had a popup I put the receiver in and somehow forgot to put the hitch pin in. Got a few miles from the campground and the receiver came out. I was amazed how far I drove before it came out.

Luckily the safety chains caught it and by coming to a stop slowly there wasn't any damage to the trailer or our van. The hardest part was getting the trailer back up since the trailer had a pivoting jack that I needed to get down. A bottle jack worked to get it up. Major lesson learned for me. I double check the hitch pin now.

 

[MN-Mark]

Mistakes can and will happen to anyone. The entire way home I think I was watching the trailer in the mirror more than the road in front of me.

I was more fortunate than you guys with the damage. It sure could have turned out worse.

 

[goducks14]

Years back we had a 5th wheel and I had an Andersen 5th hitch. Hitched up for a short trip with mostly interstate travel (70 miles) to stay at a CG for a weekend football game. When I got to the CG and started to unhitch I noticed that I never set the pin for the locking part on the hitch. The 5er pin box was just riding the whole way resting on the Anderson 5th hitch ball. The pin weight of the 5th wheel kept it on the ball. My heart sank for a bit.
Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. LOL

FWIW I did add safety chains before all that so that would've helped but it still would've been a mess.

 

[TomPanning]

The only way I know to make sure the trailer is locked onto the ball is to use the tongue jack to lift the trailer and make sure it raises the truck too. doesn’t take too long to do, if you do it right after lowering the trailer and locking the hitch.

I have a fifth wheel now, so @txloser’s post is the one that scares me. We do a tug test every time we hitch up, so at least if there’s a failure it happens at low speed with the landing gear partially extended.

 

[Thorvald]

The only way I know to make sure the trailer is locked onto the ball is to use the tongue jack to lift the trailer and make sure it raises the truck too. doesn’t take too long to do, if you do it right after lowering the trailer and locking the hitch.

I have a fifth wheel now, so @txloser’s post is the one that scares me. We do a tug test every time we hitch up, so at least if there’s a failure it happens at low speed with the landing gear partially extended.

Good point, one benefit of using a WDH, have to raise the truck with the hitch and you would find out pretty quickly if it’s not locked lol!

 

[ajg617]

I used to do a tug test but that didn't seem very effective with a Goose box and ball. Mistakenly, I used to leave the latch in the unlocked position when dropping the hitch on the ball and caught myself at a fuel stop a couple hundred yards away where I had left in in the unlocked position. That night, I re-read the Goose box instructions again but payed a lot more attention and the correct procedure was to leave the latch in the locked position while dropping the rv and watch it positively move the latch to unlocked and then back to locked. I still lift the RV a bit with the front legs and watch the truck go up just to make sure. Don't want to think what could have happened had I not stopped to fuel up and casually check the air pressure in the Goose box.

 

[Timmer]

Sometime in the late 1980's I was helping my extended family haul equipment between properties. I had a rusted hitch break on me while using my grandpa's old truck and trailer to haul a large agricultural tractor. I never again want to feel a trailer swinging around on the chains, ramming the truck, and pulling me side to side while I desperately worked to keep it on the road and safely come to a stop.

I have bad knees but I always get down and look underneath and make sure it's on correctly. One small moment of pain in the knees to avoid a much bigger pain in the a**!

 

[SSROSS]

All of us that have FW should check any time we stop and leave the vehicle for any time. I guess it is a thing now to unlatch someone’s trailer if there aren’t any locks on them. Even a friend of mine who drives tractor trailers said sometimes in the big city’s when a truck gets left for any time it has been known to happen too. It used to be people would leave things alone but not any more.

 

[Riverbug]

All of us that have FW should check any time we stop and leave the vehicle for any time. I guess it is a thing now to unlatch someone’s trailer if there aren’t any locks on them. Even a friend of mine who drives tractor trailers said sometimes in the big city’s when a truck gets left for any time it has been known to happen too. It used to be people would leave things alone but not any more.

I saw a Youtube video where a guy was caught on dashcam of another truck pull the latch on a trailer in the parking lot of a fuel station. I assume he was ticked off over something that driver did. So it must be a thing. There was a warning to always check your trailer before you leave at every stop. People can be idiots.

 

[Hoopy Frood]

I saw a Youtube video where a guy was caught on dashcam of another truck pull the latch on a trailer in the parking lot of a fuel station. I assume he was ticked off over something that driver did. So it must be a thing. There was a warning to always check your trailer before you leave at every stop. People can be idiots.

Those are mostly internet legends that got started somewhere, and just keep being propagated even though the people that it happens to are my nephew's cousin's mechanic's sister's brother. JMO anyway.

 

[Riverbug]

Those are mostly internet legends that got started somewhere, and just keep being propagated even though the people that it happens to are my nephew's cousin's mechanic's sister's brother. JMO anyway.

I would agree, but it was a dashcam video, so at least that instance wasn't a legend. It also showed the driver pull out and drop the trailer. I assume the guy that caught it on camera was sleeping and didn't know it was on video until he woke up to the commotion or something.

And for my own experience, two years ago we parked in a truck shop parking lot for lunch. It was next to a fuel station/restaurant and it was pretty empty so we thought it would be okay. Halfway through lunch a truck pulled in and even though there were 20 or so open spots to park, this guy parked in the spot next to us and crowded the line so only a few feet away. I assume he thought we were in the restaurant. He jumped out and went straight to our trailer tongue to yank on the hitch lock (we have blink cameras so we could see afterward why he went to our trailer). I always use a key lock on it so he couldn't do anything without tools. Anyway, I assume he was irked that an RV was in the truck shop area and thought it would be payback. He didn't do anything else. Just yanked on it once and headed over the to the restaurant.

 

[Hoopy Frood]

My main problem with these stories is this: "I guess it is a thing now to unlatch someone’s trailer if there aren’t any locks on them.". No facts, just passing along a rumor that may have been posted somewhere. Not a bad idea to be aware of things that actually happen, but passing along more scare stories does no one any good.

 

[Riverbug]

Fair enough, can't disagree with that.