Preventing Trailer Accidents

[gatorbait4sure]

First of all I need to tell you all that I am a White Knuckle Driver when hauling the trailer......Now I will tell you why.

I used to ride Dressage Horses...and I mean the BIG WARMBLOODS, 17 plus hands. My trainer lives an hour away, in Provincetown, MA which is surrounded by stunning beaches.

One lovely Summer day a boarder and I decided to load two horses up and drive to P-Town to ride those beaches. Off we go......Until I felt something funny and looked in the rearview to see my trailer swinging madly from side to side! I was good and stayed off the brakes, but was quickly approaching a roundabout on a busy Midcape Highway. Nowhere to go!!! The trailer continued to swing over the center line, and back over the white line on the other side, with traffic following me and coming toward me.

The other person with me yelled for me to step on the accelerator HARD......So I did. Luckily there was space in front of me to do this.....

The swinging stopped and I pulled off onto the grass and sat there trembling. BTW, No one stopped to see if I was OK here either...

I finally got out to check the horses who were standing there eating their hay, no worse the wear......then checked the trailer and hook up....Nothing wrong!

I turned around and went back home, SLOWLY, unloaded, unhooked, and called the trailer folk to find out what happened.

They said anyone hauling with a bumper pull should have SWAY BARS on the trailer which run to the hitch. These are heavy steel bars that keep trailers from swinging from side to side either from weight shifting, wind, or sudden movement of the vehicle. It does involve a larger hitch for the bars to attach to, and they look huge when having to step over them, BUT, my new trailer NEVER moves, and it is an x-tra tall, x-tra wide...and I load it to the gills! I never complain when hooking up, nor when I crack my shinbone on the HUGE hitch....NEVER! And my trailer NEVER moves anywhere but forward and backward now!

Learn from my mistakes, folks!

dru

 

[hobbyhorse23]

Thanks Dru.

My trailer has never wavered until this accident (doesn't sway in the wind or with weight shifts, etc.), but I know our last two horse straight load sure did until we put sway bars on it. I don't honestly know why my two-horse slant load doesn't have them but rest assured I will be looking into it!

I learned several small lessons from this accident and am in the process of writing a post about it now in hopes that others will get the chance to correct those things BEFORE an accident, not wish afterwards they had or be thanking their lucky stars they got away with whatever it was.

Good post.

Leia

 

[Leeana]

We have a small two horse straight load trailer (which i absolutely hate, every time we park it i pray someone steals it), no sway bars on it as we will be selling it soon, but you cannot pull that thing in the winter, last winter we drove to NY to deliver a mare and that trailer swayed all the way there and all the way back, wasnt to bad on the way home with empty trailer.

Does anyone have a photo of what sway bars look like?? Im trying to picture it but no luck...

 

[targetsmom]

Thanks for the post, Dru. I always wondered why we put those heavy things on the trailer every time we hitched and now I know.

Mary

 

[JourneysEnd]

I've heard about sway bars, but after Leia's accident I'm adding them to my bumper pull.

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

How many of you tow trailers that weigh (loaded) over 5000lbs? How many of those that do (goosenecks excluded) have weight distributing bars/hitch? Do those of you realize that except in some cases of really heavy trucks that come with heavy hitches, you have overloaded your hitch?

Class III recievers (which are standard on most SUV's and trucks under 3/4 tons, and all older (pre-2006) heavy trucks) are usually rated for 5000/500 WB and 7500/750 (or higher) WE. How many people know what those numbers mean?

WB is weight bearing... this is the standard hitch or an anti-sway hitch. 5000lbs gross trailer weight with 500lbs tongue weight MAX. Almost all horse trailers are over this! Those trailer need weight equalizing systems. These hitch systems put a large lever force on the receiver and the hitch, and put more of the tongue weight on the front axles (the STEERING AXLES!!!). This balances the load and prevents the front of the truck from being too light, possibly loosing front traction. This is very very important!

Weight equalizing or weight distributing hitches are a massive affair. They have a huge, 60lb hitch with two metal spring bars attaching to mounts on the trailer.

WD systems CAN also have anti-sway devices. You can also have anti-sway devices on standard weight carrying hitches. These are springs which resist movement. They function by resisting side to side motion, preventing significant sway. You can have one or two of these devices installed.

(Photo credit etrailer.com)

Also VERY VERY important is TIRES!!!!!! How often do you change your tires? Every 100k miles? Every 20k? How about every three years? Its not miles that are important, its AGE. Unless you drive your trailer every day, every few days, etc, the lubercants and oils aren't spread and the rubber fatigues and gets brittle. Eventually the tires will fail and shred, while looking perfectly clean and right off the shelf! Remember, its not MILES, its AGE that kills trailer tires for 99% of the personal trailers out there. Unless you drive thousands of miles each month, replace your trailer tires every three years.

 

[ropenride]

Something else to be aware of on bumper pull trailers.......the trailer should be LEVEL from front to back when hooked to the truck! We have 3 different custom drop hitches for our receiver system so that each of our trailers (horse, flat-bed, grain) are level when hooked to the truck.

I hauled with a friend once who's 2 horse trailer was up-hill when hooked to her truck. We set off with 2 good sized (16hh+) quarter horses and all was well until we got into a patch of interstate where they had scraped and grooved the asphalt. Going downhill the trailer started whipping, and I will NEVER forget looking in the rearview mirror beside me and seeing the WHOLE SIDE of the trailer. When we finally got stopped and went to check on the horses I could see where the back corner by the door had scraped on the asphalt!!

Thankfully both horses were ok, and both willingly jumped in trailers to go home. But it was A LONG TIME before I could pull a bumper pull trailer, and I still white knuckle when doing it!!

 

[coopermini]

Nathan has some very good points there.

Tires are extremely important in preventing a crash. How often does everyone check the air pressure. You won't believe how many people only check if it looks flat. For that matter I bet most do not really know what the correct pressure is for the tires on the trailer or the tow vehicle. (Hint read the sidewall on the tire). Low air pressure will cause a tire to heat up and when they get hot they tend to blowout especially with a load on. Low pressure will also contribute to a trailer fishtailing.

Our gooseneck has nearly 300,000 miles on it and we just put on the 4th set of tires on it. All those miles and we have only had two tires blow out and both were caused by debris on the road that punctured the tire. We check the pressure before we leave for each trip other than just around town.

Having a safe trip is the most important part of a good trip!

Mark

 

[hobbyhorse23]

Good points! We take our trailer in to the dealer for a safety checkup (top to bottom, tongue to tires to tailgate) and servicing each spring and this year they said we should replace the tires. After ClickMini had blowouts and flats last year I'd become concerned about ours and made sure the trailer was moved several times a month through the winter and put some plywood up against the wheel wells to prevent UV damage as well as regularly checking tire pressure before long drives. Thank you for the reminder to go out and check those again- it occurs to me that the truck tires received gouges and damage in this accident so the trailer tires may have as well!

Yipes.

Leia

Edited to add: Do you realize you should rotate your cart tires during seasonal layups for the same reason? It's not good for them to sit in one position all winter. I go out every week and rotate my pneumatic tires just a little bit so they don't develop a weak place in the tube from resting on one spot.

 

[Annabellarose]

Tires are extremely important in preventing a crash. How often does everyone check the air pressure. You won't believe how many people only check if it looks flat.

Very important! Often a flat tire will not look flat on a trailer with two axels! The other tire on the other axel will help to hold the flat tire off of the ground as it begins to go flat and it often won't look flat until it is very flat.

 

[gatorbait4sure]

More trailering tips:

I also have the tongue to tires to ramp checkup done every Spring, and always have my wheels repacked...Don't ask me what that is, but I have it done for safety.

If you are hauling a big horse, or one big horse and some smaller ones, put the biggie on the driver's side.

EVERY time I get gas I feel my tires on the trailer.

 

[Shari]

My pneumatic cart tires are always up off the ground, the axels on buckets or blocks when not in use, with the tires hanging free. Much better for them.

As for a trailer... is one reason I haven't jumped out and bought one, the horror stories I have been told by friends and I remember the time I was in a Friends truck and we were hauling her horses to a local Arab show. Trailer pushed us right through a busy Stop light. Don't know why we weren't hit but very glad for it.

Have been holding out for a low deck Cube truck or one of the ones you see made in Scotland. All in one transport..and no trailer worries. There are a few companies that will turn them into proper horse haulers. Much better ride for the horses too.

 

[SaddleTrail]

Any time you pull anything, be it trailer, tow dolly, auto transport, grain trailer you should have trailer brakes. Sway bars help keep the load from swaying as it says and they work wonders. But trailer brakes which have the automatic sensor and manual feed should be on every single vehicle you tow or pull with.

Check your tires pressure before moving, read how many psi from the sidewall of the tire. Don't use transportation tires on a horse trailer. Get your self some light truck or SUV tires, they are much better.

Always center your load and place the heaviest weight up front towards the tongue and always always place the heaviest animal on the driver side. The reason for this is the slope of the shoulder of the road will pull you right over if you have the heaviest animal on the passenger side. Use your engines compression and low gears to slow down, its always better to go to slow then to fast. Keep your self at the speed limit and check your trailers minimum and maximum trailer weights.

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

By "transportation" tires, what are you refering to? Passanger (P) vehicle tires (which are for cars) should definately not be used on trailers, and mobile home tires (cheap!) should never be used on any large trailer, and especially not horse trailers. They are one-time use tires. LT tires (light truck) should also be avoided, but are not "bad". Trailer tires (ST tires) are what you really want

They are designed for the load and are much firmer and multi-ply (more than LT tires).

As far as brakes, get a quality brake controller and make sure that all axles have ELECTRIC brakes, not inertia brakes (boat trailers). There are lots of flavors of electric, including electric over hydrolic (for large trailers). A GREAT brake controller is the Prodigy... VERY smooth off and on power, plus LOTS of reserve for emergencies. Far superior to the older Voyager II which I replaced.

 

[Candice]

What I find interesting is that when we purchased our trailer no one mentioned sway bars at all to us. When we bought the trailer we had a Z71 Suburban and the sway wasn't too bad. When we traded the Suburban in last winter for a Navigator, the trailer was impossible to tow. It was when I contacted the trailer dealership about trading the trailer in for a mini trailer that I learned we'd only be losing 500 lbs. Our trailer is an aluminum Sundowner that weighs in empty at 3500 lbs. Its a warmblood size though and tall. It was then that the girl suggested the sway bars.

We had them installed a week later and the difference was incredible. It handles very nicely now. I just wish someone had told us sooner.