Pickup truck loses trailer going down I-15

Hope the driver is ok

 

getting to be too many of these common occurences lately. sort of like seeing burned trailers as of late.

2 weeks ago there was a cowboy done the same thing in vegas. lost his trailer. luckily, the horse was ok.

 

I just don't understand how this happens. Even if for some crazy reason the 1/2" pin holding the hitch in breaks, you still have the chains too. Unless the whole hitch breaks away from the frame, there is no reason for this.

 

Yep your right, I think sometimes people don't pay attention hooking up their bumper pull trailers, I always make sure the safety chains and receiver are in good shape and I cross the chains (X pattern) when I hook up and it saved me a bad wreck this spring. We were pulling a 24' equipment trailer on gravel going up hill, the road was in very poor shape and rough, we were traveling 20-25mph and the hitch failed at the cross section where the ball tightens on to the hitch. (I've never seen that happen before, the ball/hitch was checked before it was plugged into the receiver and was well under it's rated load) Anyways when the hitch failed it dropped onto the safety chains and going up hill getting stopped was easy the only thing damaged other than my nerves was the trailer jack. My initial thought was the ball wasn't tight in the hitch but the remnants of the hitch and ball were still in the trailer hitch, I think the shock loading from the extremely rough roads put the hitch beyond its capability even though the hitch was rated 10000lbs and the trailer was 7000-7400. Anyways I changed that hitch to 12000lb and more closely inspect both receiver and hitch daily when we are using them.

 

Follow up to story . . .

Authorities relieved the pickup truck driver of all blame and focused on the semi. DOT investigators revealed the driver had not corrected a faulty air conditioning knob on the truck, and summarily executed him on the spot.

The drivers funeral is at 2pm.

 

Now that's funny...

But the sad part is, someone... somewhere... will try to say the semi was following to close and caused the motor home and other cars to crash.

 

Doesn't surprise me. I worked at an equipment dealer, and people would come in rent a piece of equipment and a trailer as well. One guy came back, upon checking him in, I was horrified to see the latch on the ball hitch wasn't down and locked. When I confronted the customer on this, he said, "Oh, I never latch those, the weight of the trailer will keep it on the ball".

 

Any time I'm following a 4 wheeler pulling a trailer I leave more following distance than normal. I assume they don't have the trailer or the load secured properly. In the last year I have had to make emergency maneuvers around a refrigerator, a couch, and a dresser; all dropped from the back of U-haul trailers right in front of me. I had to back way off a minivan hauling a trailer that was loaded heavy behind the trailer axles, causing the minivan to start fishtailing so hard I was sure it was going to roll.

 

Yup same, I see a pickup truck hauling a flat with another pickup on it, rushing down the ramp to get in front of me and started to fish tail. Once he got control he decide to go slower than me. A mini van pulling another van got unhook and it went into the ditch