Toad brakes

Seems to me in a panic stop I like the idea of eight brakes instead of four.

dubdub07 wrote:
Effy,

Great points, and even another example to support your insightful post; you can lock up the brakes on the toad and it will only damage your toad and do little to stop the MH. 4K will be dragged behind 32K+ every day of the week.

And that right there is why I don't want brakes on my Jeep, I don't want the brakes coming on while driving down the road and burn up my Jeep brakes, besides I do take more extra caution on hitch and hookups to make sure the Jeep is going no where.

;)

Effy,

Great points, and even another example to support your insightful post; you can lock up the brakes on the toad and it will only damage your toad and do little to stop the MH. 4K will be dragged behind 32K+ every day of the week.

Tinyandthegang wrote:
Anyone who thinks that their MH with a toad will not stop in a shorter distance with supp brakes is not thinking clearly. Any vehicle reguardless of weight or braking ability will stop in less distance if what they are towing is helping to stop rather than continuing to push.

Thanks for clearing that up. That's not what anyone is saying. Sure it will help, but half the distance? Impossible. And NO chart in the world will detail that. Brakes are good, and I haven't seen anyone say otherwise. But some don't need them based on the law and/or stopping distance. Could they help? Sure. The facts reside in the laws of each state. Period. Anything else about negligence and all the doom and gloom is just noise, conjecture and unsupported facts. If you are in a state that requires SUPP brakes and you can't stop in time, it likely will be a factor based on the severity of the accident. If the law does not require it then there is no legal position to pursue it. And Devil's advocate here, how much stopping power is too much? I mean stopping fast is one thing, but having everything come flying at you from the rear of the coach isn't desirable either. I imagine structurally there is a limit on forces coming to an abrupt halt. No idea what that is, just sayin. All I know is, I can stop MUCH faster pulling a toad without brakes, in my light coach a than a lot of larger RV's with sup brakes. I have sup brakes BTW (dolly), but there was a time when I didn't. Can't tell much difference frankly. Light coach, light car, good brakes.

Anyone who thinks that their MH with a toad will not stop in a shorter distance with supp brakes is not thinking clearly. Any vehicle reguardless of weight or braking ability will stop in less distance if what they are towing is helping to stop rather than continuing to push.

Effy wrote:

uncle t wrote:
hard to swallow foolish comments about being able to stop on a dime without toad brakes. you all need to look at the chart. without sup brakes stopping distance is almost double. if you ever rear end anyone without the required brakes, I hope you have a lot of $$$ for the negligence damages award that will be levied against you.

This is what I am taking about. What chart details stopping distance with or without sup brakes? A manufacturer of sup brakes? Thousands of factors from the MH itself, weight, pad wear, heat, road conditions, weight of the toad, combined weight etc etc, go into this. No chart can detail that. And the second part, again is conjecture. Doom and gloom. The total assumption that you will be negligent in an accident based on sup brakes alone is silly at best. It may be a factor, but it's an assumption. Stick to the law and facts.

I use a brake system so I don't know why I even care, but....unless you kill someone through blatant negligence, I can't see it being a huge deal if you can't stop. Tort law is pretty clear, you have to be negligent and show blatant disregard to others. Your distances are longer to stop anyway and I don't buy the 4K toad doubles stopping distance. I drive a MH and the Jeep does not double my stopping distance nor does the supp brake even come on much. I tell you all, my tanks being full and sloshing around do more than my Jeep on the back of the MH.

uncle t wrote:
hard to swallow foolish comments about being able to stop on a dime without toad brakes. you all need to look at the chart. without sup brakes stopping distance is almost double. if you ever rear end anyone without the required brakes, I hope you have a lot of $$$ for the negligence damages award that will be levied against you.

This is what I am taking about. What chart details stopping distance with or without sup brakes? A manufacturer of sup brakes? Thousands of factors from the MH itself, weight, pad wear, heat, road conditions, weight of the toad, combined weight etc etc, go into this. No chart can detail that. And the second part, again is conjecture. Doom and gloom. The total assumption that you will be negligent in an accident based on sup brakes alone is silly at best. It may be a factor, but it's an assumption. Stick to the law and facts.

Straight and simple answer to the original question: YES!!

hard to swallow foolish comments about being able to stop on a dime without toad brakes. you all need to look at the chart. without sup brakes stopping distance is almost double. if you ever rear end anyone without the required brakes, I hope you have a lot of $$$ for the negligence damages award that will be levied against you.

Executive wrote:

Effy wrote:
This topic gets beat to death about once a week. I have yet to see any evidence where an aux braking system prevented an accident that would have otherwise occurred. Not saying that it doesn't happen but there is simply no data that I have seen, and I have asked on here repeatedly. /snip/

I agree it gets beat to death every time it's brought up. Most RVers want to be as safe as possible, but let's face it, there's a lot of em that are simply too cheap. (read some of the tire threads) That said, where would you look to find statistical information. If I make a panic stop, which I have, and no accident occurs, I simply change my shorts and move on. If there is an accident, a report is filed and the insurance companies do their thing and it's done. Now, if there's a serious injury and for sure if there's a fatality, things get a little more complicated. That coach that killed the trooper in Tennessee last month will be impounded and dissected, three ways to heaven. Will we hear about the results? Maybe, but probably not. For his sake I hope he was 100% legal. Otherwise, he's looking at a possible manslaughter charge or at the least a wrongful death suit. Those things only come out in a court of law. To find that type of statistical information would take more research than I have time for...if anyone is interested in doing so, I'll be happy to tell you where to look.....:B.....Dennis

That's sort of my point Dennis. Playing devil's advocate. Everyone rants about what will happen and doom and gloom but it's all conjecture without the support of analytical data. Plenty on the car side, nothing on the MH side. What you are left with is the law and some applied common sense. I think brakes are a great idea. I mean why not? But folks rant on here about what will happen if you don't have them and it's all conjecture - no facts. The facts reside in the law and possibly negligence. The guy in TN is likely negligent regardless of how his MH was set up. I don't think that had anything to do with stopping in time and more about the guy simply disregarding the signs and tried to skirt the traffic.