My scariest times towing involved road and weather conditions. I have had the same idiots cut me off, merge without looking etc., and while not as bad as many of the posts here, it still give me the willies to think about it.
Coming back on HWY41 South from Yosemite a few years ago. Lots of road construction. Went up on a Saturday so no work and all was fine. Going home, we had to follow a pilot truck. There were places they barely left enough room between equipment and the ditch for vehicles to pass, I thought for sure several times I was going to hit something or drop into the ditch. High pucker factor.
The worst experience for me was going up HWY18 from San Bernardino to Dogwood campground near Lake Arrowhead. The way the San Bernardino mountains are situated often causes perfect conditions for dense fog. It can roll in on a moments notice. I had just spent 3 hrs fighting traffic to get TO San Bernardino, and an hour trying to get KFC for dinner. By the time we hit the road heading up the mountain it was twilight. I was ok because I grew up with these mountains as my back yard and knew this road pretty well and night driving doesn't bug me Part way up the first stretch the fog formed, it took about 60 seconds to go from clear to pea soup. I slowed way down, it got worse. No where on this road to really turn around, and if someone was coming the other way they would not see me in time. I could barely make out the center line just in front of the car. At this point I put it in 1st and crept at 5-10mph, straining to make out the poor center line or the poorer white line. I am on the cliff side of the road, some sections have guard rails, some don't. There were cars behind, none in front. When I found a shallow turn out to allow others to pass, they all stopped right behind me, they were following my lights. I realized then I would not be safe until I got to the campground and off the mountain road. I was later amused at the though if I had gone over the side my following cars probably would have followed my lights right over the side too. I even had to roll down my window and look out the side to try to see the center line at times it was so thick, and pray anyone coming the other way would stay in their lane. All I can say is thank God I knew the road and landmarks. Made it to the campground, which was almost worse because there was no lines on the asphalt of the campground road. I actually had to stop and get out and look several times to be sure I was not driving into a site or off the road
Once finally in the site, DW took the screaming 4 month old DD into the trailer while I got unhooked and set up. The POS wheel cross chock failed to hold just after I unhooked the safety chains and the TT rolled back off the leveling blocks and thank God stopped when the forward tire hit the back set of blocks, or it would have rolled back off the pad and down into the trees, with DW and DD inside. After returning the TT to the blocks and putting some huge rocks behind the tires I collapsed. I had been running on adrenaline for HOURS at this point.
