Is 70 the age to stop towing

Its been just over 2 years since this thread began.

It should be retitled "Is 72 the age to stop towing?"

waterboy502000 wrote:
You cant be serious.

Of course not serious, just check the OP. Mostly just a trolling thread that was allowed to continue.

Pulled this one back from the dead eh?
You know what’s too old? When yer wrinkly arse is doing 62mph in a 70 zone , in the hammer lane of the freeway with holiday weekend traffic returning home and you stay glued to that lane with yer arms outstretched at 10&2 like yer scared chitless but make no attempt to move to the right.....
Yeah just passed that guy and another whole gaggle of idiots on the road this afternoon.
As a credit to the old folks here, most of the idiots weren’t old, but they were driving Subaru’s!

You cant be serious.

BigRabbitMan wrote:
I don't tow a trailer as I have a 29' class A by choice. Have owned for the last 18 years and I am 78. Used the class A to tow a small trailer to Colorado from Oregon last October. A friend of mine recently sold his unit like mine as he decided it was time to hang it up. At the time, he was 94. He did travel with his son who drove his own coach just incase he had a health issue while traveling.

It's the person and their abilities and not the age.

I think 78 is way to old these days with all the cars and trucks on the road. Bowing could be fun and 78.

mdcamping wrote:
Not trying to take this out of context, years ago remember reading on this forum a young camping family towing a 35'TT with a dodge Durango from canada to florida. Somewhere on the way down he tried passing someone in a rain storm, lost control, went head on into a tractor trailer. He, his wife and 3 of his 5 kids died. what I'm trying to say is tragic events like this have happened at every age group.

IMHO, that happened because:

1. Towing something too big with something too small.
2. Trying to pass something while towing something.
3. Trying to pass something in the rain.
4. Trying to pass something when something coming towards you was not far enough away.

Towing something is always not as safe as not towing something under any and all conditions. We never have towed an RV and never will. Even though our motorized RV is quite small, we hopefully would never try doing 3. or 4.

Doing 4. is a real mystery - aren't oncoming headlights visible way further away at night than even a tractor trailer is in the daytime?

In relation to the age issue, I'll just add what I posted in another related subject:

The 2016 fatal vehicle crash rates from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety for instance, show that 16-19 year old drivers had the second highest rate at 17.8 fatalities per 100,000 drivers, only a little better than the 20-34 year old group at 21.6. The 70+ age group on the other hand, was the lowest at 13.1, with the next lowest the 35-69 year old group at 13.3. Those numbers would seem to indicate that no one should be allowed to drive until they're at least 35...

FishOnOne wrote:

cummins2014 wrote:

Mr.Beebo wrote:
I have a cousin who is 87 years old. He just left central Illinois on his way to Arizona for a month. Bought himself a new Ford truck and a truck camper. Left with his 84 year old girlfriend. He;ll be driving 4-5 hours a day and then stopping off at a campground for a day or so. He'll stay in Tuscon with my sister for a week then off to revisit some places of his youth.
He tells me after that he's heading up to Alaska. I asked him how far north will be going into Alaska. He replies "How far north can I go?"
He isn't a typical 87 year old, but he is the only guy I know can do it.
Still cutting down trees, splitting wood, making wine, bio diesel for his car, amazing guy.

Not too bad for a 87, but I got that beat. I spend a good portion of the summer in a little RV park in Montana every year since retirement. I met our friend when we first started there before retirement around 2004.

As usual this friend was on his usual site in the RV park, it was his 40th year on that site. He turned 91 this past June. He tows his 32' travel trailer from Indio, Ca. He starts out in april in Utah for awhile, then moves up to Bozeman ,Mt. in late april. Then to the little rv park where I met him years ago, from first of june , until labor day, then back up to Bozeman until the weather starts to get bad. Then heads home to Indio, until the next April.

This year we don't know what he is going to do. He got diagnosed with cancer while in Montana last summer. He had treatment in Bozeman, and went home late fall. He left his trailer in Bozeman. Would not surprise me to see him in the RV park on the river when we get there mid June. If so we will be celebrating his ninety second birthday in June. Oh! ,and he was still fly fishing at 90, I know because I fished with him, but I'm just a youngster at only 70 :B

Yes ,I still tow a 38' fifth wheel, with not a problem.

Outstanding... Hope you and your fishing partner the very best and easy limits.

He is an amazing guy, first guy I met when I got to the mentioned RV park. I was parked right next to him. RV park is not very big, less then 20 sites. Pretty much the same crowd of fly fishermen every summer. Everybody is usually in the same sites year ,after year.

From talking to him during the holidays, he wants to be back up there. I hope he is .

Copperhead wrote:
When a person fails on multiple levels like this, it exhibits some real questionable thinking ability.

Not trying to take this out of context, years ago remember reading on this forum a young camping family towing a 35'TT with a dodge Durango from canada to florida. Somewhere on the way down he tried passing someone in a rain storm, lost control, went head on into a tractor trailer. He, his wife and 3 of his 5 kids died. what I'm trying to say is tragic events like this have happened at every age group.

Mike

I did read the article. The driver failed on two levels... driving at night without sufficient lights, and going the wrong way. Both critical errors. It's an RV.... they couldn't kick back and relax and wait till morning?

Driving in the wrong direction was the major factor. Not having proper lighting was the icing on the cake to make this a tragedy in the making. The poor lighting, while sufficient enough to justify staying put till morning, probably led to not seeing the signs properly and then driving opposed to the traffic and leading to this mess.

When a person fails on multiple levels like this, it exhibits some real questionable thinking ability. And it is very probable that his RV driving days are effectively over. What a way to live out the final years of one's life, knowing that one's actions caused the loss of two young people and all the blame can be all laid at one's feet.