Today I was driving a tractor trailer for work and this guy pulls out in front of me while I am doing 50 mph down the road. He was driving an expedition and pulling a tandem axle utility trailer. I almost hit him it took all the driving I could do to miss him. Then he gets going down the road and I am behind him thinking how stupid he must be to pull out infront of an 80,000 pound truck like that. Then once I calm down a little I am looking at the trailer and I notice no fenders no lights the trailer axles are not even inline with each other and the trailer is not even tracking straight. We get a mile up the roud and we go over a bridge when he hit the first expansion gap I saw the coupler come up by the rear window I knew he was in trouble. The trailer went back down and started to sway very very violently. The trailer was pulling the back of the suv back and forth from left to right. Just when I thought it was going to flip the suv the saftey chains broke and the trailer shot left and hit a toyota camry head on. The damage was unbeliveable!!!! the car looks like it hit a brick wall doing 60. Luckily no one was seriously hurt. The state trooper wrote the accident up as an equipment failure. The driver didnt even get a ticket. He had trailer brakes on the trailer but the truck had no brake controler. He also had no break away box to activate the brakes. Sorry I just had to vent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I am asuming you told the officer the entire story you just told us. If so the officer needs to go back and write more tickets to the suv driver. I would have come unglued and probobly gotten myself in trouble before the cops even arived. Reminds me of a trailer I stopped and looked at for sale along the road a couple miles from my house. There is a acerage that a bunch of mexicans lived on, that all at once they just disopered. There where 2 or 3 familys living on one acerage and last fall they just flat disopered. they owned the acerage and everything but abandoned it and a bunch of vehicles. Well about a month ago all of a suden someone has been moving some of the vehicles around and lining them up and they have slowely disopered. Then this trailer winds up out buy the road for sale. Its a 24x8 flatbed. The first thing I noticed was how tall it sat. The bed is waist high on me and Ime not short. I looked under it and abought pooped myself. Someone had taken dropp spindle axles off a old camper and welded a bar between the hubs where the axle would be if it where a straight axle. Then they rotated the axle so that the hubs where aimed down and then clamped the axle to the springs. Now the frame of the trailer was so tall that they needed to lower the toung. They took 3 2x2 steel tubes about 6 inches long and wlded them together stacked on top of each other and them welded them between the toung and the frame of the trailer. They did that in 2 places and called it good. For $1200 I could of had a trailer as safe as the one you wached cream a car. Good thing no one was hurt seriously.

 

And they bust the brass ones of the everyday joe that does things right. Then these idiots just about kill innocent people and get nothing for punishment.. Unbelievable. I would write that statement up and send it to the driver of the Camary. Maybe some civil action would cook that goof if the law can't take it.

 

Well come to find out the guy that was towing the trailer was my old neighbor. I didnt tell the cop much cause I figured the guy was in enough trouble. Then later I found out that he had a baby in the truck with him. I should have slapped the crap outa him but I thought that he had enough problems.

 

What would they have done to you if your trailer had come off and hit the Camry? Equipment failure

 

I agree it is idiots like that who screw things up for the rest of us. I know every time i hook up a trailer i check and double check all my lights, tires, chains and the coupler.

I also know how it feels to see a trailer coming at you across the road. Had some idiot with a 18' tandem had it come loose and come across a four lane road right in front of the truck i was in.

 

Holy cow! That Camry got messed up! I'm really glad nobody got seriously hurt. But I hope that guy learned a lesson because it was entirely possible that somebody could have.

I won't pull a trailer if it feels unsafe. Starts wagging around or what not. If his safety chains broke, and clearly they did, that guy was pulling an unsafe load.

 

There was no load on the trailer it was empty the chains broke cause the trailer was swaying so hard back and forth after it came unhooked.

 

I can tell you that if something happened to my wife like that (She drives the EXACT same Camry, color, year, etc. usually w/ my daughter in the car) I would want a trucker that witnessed the entire accident to fully disclose what he/she saw.

That guy should not have a license and needs to face the consequences for deciding to attach such an unsafe trailer to his vehicle. Maybe that will help him think a little harder before he KILLS someone.

I suggest you call the police back and tell the WHOLE story.

 

If you dont say anything he wont learn anything! he needs to take reponsibilty for this, Thank God it wasnt a motorcycle instead of the camry. I would definately notify the camry of what you witnessed. The cop didnt ask for witness statements??

 

I'm happy to say I'm NOT one of those type. I tow a trailer bigger than that every week. I own 4 trailers, and every one has larger chains, their own lock pin, brand new wiring with looming (I do this every other year now even though the wire looks good), replace the floor as needed (every year if i don't paint it or seal it with diesel), and good tires. I would never overload or unsecure a load. This is all common sense. Even if the trailer is small I would still accomplish having working lights and brakes if its supposed to have them.

 

The cop took my name and phone number but he just wanted me to get my truck outa there cause I had everything all jammed up traffic wise.

 

Well today the police officer that is investigating called me and I told him everything that happened. Now I got a clear consience about the whole thing.

 

It's people like you who allow justice to be served.

You are allowing this moron to lean that it won't be a good idea to do this again....even if its the hard way.

Thanks!

 

I am also glad there was some follow up on this. I too am very particular about towing with all the safety in mind. I am not worried about being caught, it that I would not want to hurt anyone because I didn't do my part.