willald wrote:
wa8yxm wrote:
Dave H M wrote:
What has this got to do with RVing. ?
I scanned the article and it seemed to be centered about cargo not being secured properly.
I answered that question: There are many folks towing 3,000, 4,000 or even heavier cars without aux brake systems.. A car in tow is a trailer, it trails behind the tow vehicle and thus is a trailer. Imagine loosing a hitch pin (i did) and not having an aux brake system (I also had that). and what could happen when the car breaks free?
In the incident being described here, there were no safety chains (or they were not used properly), and no break-away system. Thats the real issue here, that caused the results to be so tragic in this case. Had either of these (especially safety chains) been used properly, this incident would probably have had a far different (and much less tragic) outcome.
However, John, you're talking about MH owners towing vehicles without using supplemental brakes. Thats a whole different story, unless they aren't using safety cables or a break-away system, either. Given that most tow bars come with the safety cables, I'm betting even folks that don't use a supplemental brake system on their toad, ARE definitely using safety chains at the very least.
When I towed my wife's Festiva, I didn't use a brake system. (That tiny car was light enough to be under the 2000lb weight cutoff.) However, I was towing it with a 4000lb rated tow bar. I had two safety cables (lengths of wrecker winch cable), each rated for, IIRC, 12,000lbs. They were totally independent of each other, and the tow bar. (Though zip-tied to it so they wouldn't tangle.) ALl three (tow bar & both cables) would have to fail for it to come loose.
