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Badhabit's avatar
Badhabit
Explorer
Jul 13, 2015

Somebody's vacation got ruined

On Thursday afternoon, Highway 16 on the west side of Edmonton AB, I noticed something in the west bound lane as we were going east. I said to my wife"someone must have lost a container or something on the road. As we got closer we noticed that it was about a 24 or 26' travel trailer laying on its side. There was a fairly new Jeep Grand Cherokee still hitched to it and upright but the back end was about 3' in the air. Not sure exactly how long the trailer was but it and the Jeep took up all three lanes and both shoulders. Wasn't windy so not sure what happened but it sure looked like not enough truck for the trailer. Hope they were alright
H
  • Reminds me of a topic I tried to talk to a new popup owner about...loading. They got sway when they pulled it. I tried to tell them they need to go weigh their popup after they load it and make sure it is loaded correctly. Gave him all the instructions and stories. He responded they gave me the storage cabinets and it should be designed for whatever I load in them. OMG I could not convince this guy that was not true, he also felt that the pickup bed was designed to load whatever you could fit in it, leaves or lead did not matter to him.

    He totaled his new popup within the next month heading to the grand canyon, thankfully no one got hurt. I got to swaying and left the Tahoe somehow and went over the guard rail and down the hill.

    Luckily he did not replace it, decided hotels were better.
  • Wow - TV and TT on the side of the road and it is immediately obvious what caused the wreck...
  • I tow a 1991 prowler 19E with my 2002 Jeew WJ (Grand Cherokee) it handles it very nice. Obviously I have my brakes tuned in and an anti sway system helping but it seems to tow nicely even with the 3' of extra trailer that's been added to the rear bumper for my diy tire/luggage/bike rack
  • I'll volunteer a guess: tail wagging the dog. I had Trailblazers in the past - great SUV's that were capable of hauling 6 or 7 thousand pounds. One day we were coming home with a car on the open 16' hauler - we were well below the load limits; but with some extra weight on the trailer (rather than Ed's lightweight dragracer) - it wanted to get a little "pushy" with the shorter-wheelbased SUV; actually, scarily-so. That's when I traded up to a pickup truck - the longer wheelbase made a world of difference.

    I can only imagine how pushy a travel trailer would get with a short SUV....
  • Since we are guessing at the cause, I suspect Alien Space Craft. They are sneaky you know.

    These days it could have been “a sleep at the wheel”, Texting or a host of other things. I hope all are okay; it sure would be interesting to find the real cause.
  • Badhabit wrote:
    Wasn't windy so not sure what happened but it sure looked like not enough truck for the trailer. Hope they were alright
    H


    Agreed without knowing any real details... but sounds like not enough TV, improper loading with too light tongue weight, too high of speed resulted in uncontrollable sway that caused a crash.

    And also hope no one was injured. Hard way to learn a lesson.