While towing through a busy town yesterday a gal in the car next to me waved at me and pointed to the rear of my 5er. Ok, so I better pull over and see what's up.After a few scary minutes I got to a parking lot. I was expecting to see a wheel missing or my air conditioner gone, but I saw nothing wrong. Tires all fine, nothing hanging from the chassis, ladder present, roof fine, nothing missing from the truck. I have no idea what this was about. I guess I should have rolled down the window to hear her, but on a busy narrow bridge that's not something I want to do.I can't imagine somebody doing this as a prank, but it sure appears that way. Anybody have this happen to you?

We had someone on I-70 waving and flagging us down to tell us we were leaking water. We had purposely left our water drain open to drain the tank as we drove. I mean I guess I appreciate him doing that because if we were really were leaking we'd want to know... but it wasn't very safe for him to do so.

While traveling to South Dakota from Alabama (pulling an enclosed trailer with my truck), I had a guy wave me down and yell that one of my trailer tires was bouncing all over the place. I pull over to look and see nothing. After about 10 minutes, I finally see that the leaf springs on rear axle on the driver's side was broken. Could have been bad news if the axle had turned and the trailer flipped. I never felt anything from the trailer while driving.

2oldman wrote:I can't imagine somebody doing this as a prank, but it sure appears that way. Anybody have this happen to you?Was the boat you were pulling behind your 5th wheel still there? :B

Happened to us last year. Had a truck bed full + full trailer in route for Moab. Guy in a van pointing back. We pull over at next exit (still in city so less than half mile) and cannot find anything wrong. Even rolled forward looking for bad tire tread. Good lights, nothing missing. No clue.

Someone pulled up side of me last weekend and flagged me down. It seems that I put the antenna up without my sticky note on the speedometer. I think we'd driven about 50 miles before he stopped me. I was truly surprised it was still there.

Pull over! | Good Sam Community

2oldman
Explorer II
May 30, 2018
blofgren wrote:
"you have no brake lights on your trailer".
That's one thing I didn't check. thanks.
Hammerboy
Explorer
May 30, 2018
crazyro wrote:
Had a guy rolled down his window at a stop light right before I took off and told me my brake lights weren't working properly. Had to pull over into the median and get my wife to go check things out. Everything was (just as I thought), working properly. I still have no idea what that was all about...

I wonder if you had a short or something and things were blinking so to speak as your traveling. Idk

Forgot to latch a awning window once and it was being sucked open as we were traveling until someone flagged us, nothing too serious ever. Hate that feeling when someone pulls along side of you though.

Dan
Grit_dog
Navigator
May 30, 2018
I welcome eyes on the road, seems weird all the stories of false alarms. I’ve been noticed of issues and vice versa many times.
What’s disheartening around here though and I should expect it from none other than Seattle drivers is the sheer ineptitude and lack of awareness. Recently I’ve tried to get someone’s attention locally here in traffic, trailer issues, tire going flat etc. short of cutting them off, window down, pacing them, horn honk, nothing get their attention! It’s strange.
Mich_F
Explorer
May 30, 2018
Last Dec. while heading east bound in LA. on I 10, someone flagged me down. When I got out to check on what the issue was, I saw that one of the two bikes I was carrying on a rack on the back of my toad pick up truck had come partially off the rack. Fortunately it was still being held on by a couple of bungee cords. Dragging it on the road for who knows how long, did screw up the end of the handle bar, the handle bar grip, brake, seat, tire and tube.
jkwilson
Explorer II
May 30, 2018
Grit dog wrote:
I welcome eyes on the road, seems weird all the stories of false alarms. I’ve been noticed of issues and vice versa many times.
What’s disheartening around here though and I should expect it from none other than Seattle drivers is the sheer ineptitude and lack of awareness. Recently I’ve tried to get someone’s attention locally here in traffic, trailer issues, tire going flat etc. short of cutting them off, window down, pacing them, horn honk, nothing get their attention! It’s strange.

Several years ago I was driving a fairly winding state highway that led to a popular fishing reservoir. I came up behind a bass boat and noticed that some rods had fallen off the back of the boat and were tangled in the outboard rigging with the handles dragging on the road. When he finally came to an intersection where he had to stop, I pulled up next to him and started rolling my window down to tell him. He flipped me off and took off!

I hope the rods held out until he got home and he found out what he was.
ependydad
Explorer
May 30, 2018
Grit dog wrote:
I welcome eyes on the road, seems weird all the stories of false alarms. I’ve been noticed of issues and vice versa many times.

If someone is concerned to say something to me, I'll gladly take the false alarm. They might not understand what they're seeing, but if they felt moved to help me, I'll gladly take a look.

I've been on the helpful side of someone noticing something- my outdoor kitchen door opened up. I couldn't figure out why this yahoo passed me and then suddenly slowed down. I was pissed for a minute before I realized that I had an issue - the outdoor kitchen door is super thin and perfectly aligned with the rear view mirror.

Another case was a flat that my TPMS had already alerted me of.

I've chased folks down for different things. Just went jogging through down the road in the campground in Branson when I noticed they had a window down on their toad. They smiled and thanked me and said they knew it was down and were going to address it before leaving the campground entirely. But, I was still glad to do it.
blofgren
Explorer
May 31, 2018
rightlaneonly wrote:
blofgren wrote:
Had it happen last year when we were leaving the city during rush hour and it was very slow on the freeway. I noticed a car behind the fiver for the longest time and then all of a sudden she pulled in the lane next to me and motioned for me to roll down my window. When I did, she said "you have no brake lights on your trailer". Of course my wife instantly hit the roof while I calmly turned on the headlights and saw the marker lights on the trailer come on and touched the brake pedal and felt the trailer react. My wife kept on about me not checking the lights, etc. so I finally found a place to pull over and found all of the lights (including the brake lights) working perfectly.

I then clued in and realized that I had not used the service brakes at all in the stop and go traffic and had only used the exhaust brake on full mode. It works very well on the Cummins/6 speed manual combo! :B

Isn't checking brake lights her job?:h

I didn't think it would be too wise to go there at that point..... ;)
Mr_Mark1
Explorer
May 31, 2018
I alerted an older couple driving through my small downtown area in California. I was in my SUV and they were in a class A pulling a towed four down.

The front wheels on the towed were jerking hard left then hard right for a block or two. Once I could get next to them I honked and the guy rolled down his window and I told him. I assumed that he pulled over as I had to move on as traffic was moving.

I certainly would want someone to tell me if they saw something unusual.

Safe travels,
MM.
CavemanCharlie
Explorer III
May 31, 2018
I remember seeing a video a while back of a man who was pulling his toad but, had forgotten to take off the emergency brake. He was dragging it along with smoke coming out from behind it. The person who took the video pulled along side of him and yelled at him to tell of the problem. He just said OK and kept going. lol If I can find the video I will post a link to it but, a quick search turned up nothing.
Turtle_n_Peeps
Explorer
May 31, 2018
CavemanCharlie wrote:
I remember seeing a video a while back of a man who was pulling his toad but, had forgotten to take off the emergency brake. He was dragging it along with smoke coming out from behind it. The person who took the video pulled along side of him and yelled at him to tell of the problem. He just said OK and kept going. lol If I can find the video I will post a link to it but, a quick search turned up nothing.

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