was this one of you guys??

No brakes? It is possible the driver forgot to hook up the trailer to the truck....I am sure it's happened to a few of us at one point.
But, yeah, they really are movin'

majorgator wrote:


And as a parting shot, this forum is the absolute worst forum I've ever subscribed to where people are just sitting around, lurking, waiting for a chance to twist words and comments in order to start an argument.

This. Everyone just sitting like a pack of wolves waiting to tear everyone up.

Mr_MrsSchlepprock250 wrote:
So... A guy crashes his pick up and camper, and you start bashing truck drivers??... Wow!

Nope, not at all. I work with truck drivers almost everyday. All I'm saying is that there's 4 pages of calling the dude an idiot based on a 49 second video (really closer to 30 seconds if you take out the intro and stop rolling at the crash), when NONE OF US have any clue as to all the other circumstances that could have been going on.

But...if you want my opinion, the majority of truck drivers I encounter are decent folk just doing their job in a safe manner. SOME of the truck drivers I encounter are real jerks who could care less about safety. No different than any other aspect of life. However, DOT must do a better job of enforcing the cell phone issue. I believe the fine in FL is something like $3K if you get caught with your hand on a phone while operating a semi. Stiff indeed, but putting 30K to 40K miles per year on the road, I can attest that a great number of truckers are greatly distracted by their phone.

And as a parting shot, this forum is the absolute worst forum I've ever subscribed to where people are just sitting around, lurking, waiting for a chance to twist words and comments in order to start an argument.

So... A guy crashes his pick up and camper, and you start bashing truck drivers??... Wow!

I'll bite a little and offer my thoughts...

First thing, the driver was probably going too fast and had no clue how to handle such a situation. But let's not make too many assumptions on a 49 second video. What was going on before? Was the semi moving along at a much slower speed then sped up when the fellow tried to pass? Perhaps the wind from that semi was kicking the other guy's butt and he felt it was necessary to pass, even if he had to pick up his speeds a little. And regardless of what anyone speculates, we don't know what the actual speeds are for either driver.

What I do no know is that the semi exasperated the situation by not backing off. He's a professional truck driver, so he's probably seen this type of problem many times. Though he probably has no legal obligation to slow down, that's just common courtesy. Perhaps if he would have backed off a little bit, the wind effect might have made just enough difference to allow the guy to straighten out. He didn't slow down until the guy had completely lost control.

Heck, maybe the semi driver was totally clueless until it was too late...?? Maybe he started the problem beforehand by moving into the other guy's lane while he was trying to pass? Maybe the semi driver was on his phone not paying attention (which I've noticed to be a growing epidemic amongst truckers). In fact, let's consider that the semi driver was completely at fault. As far as we know, that could easily be the case.

Here's another idea...
Maybe they're both moving along at 60 MPH, RV'er in the left lane having no problems at all. Then another semi comes barreling in there and gets him all loose. The RV'er can't move over because there's our dash cam semi. The unknown semi is right on his butt, so the RV'er chooses to pass the dashcam guy. The unknown semi sees there's gonna be some trouble, so he backs off...but too late.

Too many unknowns to be throwing rocks at either person.

rbpru wrote:
It is impressive that the TT was upright and not in pieces.

True. If you pause the video as the trucker is driving by the TT, you can see the entire side of that TT is destroyed, door buckled in along with side wall. It may not have broke into pieces, but that TT is obviously a complete loss.

Also, for the mention this video has been around for a while... not sure why someone would go to the hassle of embedding 2015/07/20 on the video. What purpose would that serve?

After watching the video again and seeing the propane tanks bouncing around in that rear carrier I'm gonna say the guy towing didn't have a clue on anything!

So at this point it is operator error and lack of any towing knowledge or ability.

rbpru wrote:
I am with the group that asks why no brake lights?

Right or wrong I would be stomping on the brakes at the first fish tail.

It is impressive that the TT was upright and not in pieces.

stomping on the brakes would be a bad thing. You want to gradually slow, but apply your trailer brakes to bring the trailer inline.

Stomping on the tv brakes would do nothing good for the sway imo

I am with the group that asks why no brake lights?

Right or wrong I would be stomping on the brakes at the first fish tail.

It is impressive that the TT was upright and not in pieces.

Muddydogs wrote:

downtheroad wrote:
safety chains?

In an accident like this your standard trailer safety chains won't hold up and come right off. Would you want to be chained to the trailer once it went over?

No, but that's one of the reasons for safety chains in the first place....to protect others from a run-a-way loose trailer.