Abour 20 years ago,[or more] when I was the Fleet Manager for Telecom, based in Goulburn, I received an urgent call to go to the depot in Cooma [about 120 miles away]

When I got there I found a medium/large sized trenching machine that was VERY securely chained down on a two axle trailer with its ROPS [roll over protection system] badly damaged & with damage to the mudguards/fenders on both sides of the trailer.

These larger size trailers were towed by something like a 3 to 5 ton truck using a towing ring on the trailer & pin on the truck. The towing eye on the trailer could rotate a full 360 degrees on it's shaft in the housing.

It seems that they were traveling a bit quicker than they should along a recently reconstructed section of dirt road that was elevated about 2.5m/7 ft above the surrounding ground level. The road swung to the right & the road surface was VERY slippery due to the fact that it had been raining steadily for the last week.

It doesnt take much imagination to see the trailer sliding off to the left, taking the back of the truck with it.
The trailer slipped off the left side of the road & slid down the embankment performing a single roll as it went. The swiveling towing eye shaft allowed the trailer to roll over without taking the truck with it, which had fortunately remained on the road surface.

The trailer rolled up onto its wheels as the ground level & road level became one again & the trailer fell obediently in behind the truck as a very shaken driver & ditcher operator pulled to the side of the road & got out for a quick inspection, a smoke, & a 15 minute break while they changed their underwear.
The fact that the trencher was so securely chained & dogged down meant that it the two were effectively one unit & there was much less damage as a result.

If it had not been for the swiveling towing eye we could have lost the truck & possibly the crew.
Unbelieveably, the ditcher needed only a good washdown, a replacement ROPS, & vertical exhaust system to restore it to service & the trailer needed a washdown, some mudguard, wiring & tow coupling repairs & it too was good to go.

The truck escaped unscathed & both the driver & operator took to the pub to settle their nerves. It could so easily have ended in tradgedy.



We also lost a Caterpillar D7 bulldozer off the side of a low loader at about 75kph near Crookwell back in the early 80's & it lay on it's side, blocking the main road for almost a full day before I could get it moved, .......... but that's another story.

In 1992 i was going to Grafton from Sydney to compete in the Australian Hillclimb Championships. The Tow car was a ZG Ford Fairlane, the trailer was built on a caravan chassis & it had a 1200 coupe on it. So it was heavy towcar, light trailer,you'd think it wouldn't be a problem. Got on to the expressway at Hornsby & the car & trailer start taking up all 3 lanes swaying,in peak hour traffic. Got it slowed down & tried again, same thing. Only did it over 80 k's (50mph). going to be a slow trip to Grafton, thinks I. Called the guy who loaded the cars, It turns out he had put 3 20 litre jerry cans of avgas in the 1200 coupe's boot to even out the load, then pumped up the air shocks in the fairlane. So the Avgas went into the boot of the Fairlane, which wasn't even half full, & the air shocks had some air let out. After that it towed so well i didn't even notice that one of the wheels had come off it til i got to Grafton. It was there at Nambucca Heads where i did a walk around, but not at Grafton. Thats why my friend & i went half shares in a 2 tonne flat bed Isuzu truck.

Hmm about 10 years ago (i was a young fella) my brother was towing his hilux on a trailer down to collie for a competition weekend. The tow car, a VS commodore was chuggin along fine when the trailer started to sway. They treid all the usual thigs, speed up, slow down but nothing worked. It all got too much, and the trailer rolled. The tow car survived, with 5 guys needing new undies, but the trailer and the hilux were a write off.

After the insuarnce company investigated, they found that the trailer had severly worn bearings. The axles were shifting back and forward in the brackets casuing the whole axles to steer the trailer. Lucky for my brother, the trailer was hired, and the hire company had to pay.
Lucky for my brother, they had tied the hilux down well enough so that it was in fact one with the trailer. he also lost all his tools from the tray. i remember going back to the crash site a week later with a metal detector to try and find the rest of his tools. We only recoverd about half, but he still has the same tool chest, but its somewhat bent these days...

about 12 years back we were towing my mates RX2 to the panel beaters, behind my AP5 valiant. About half way, the trailer started getting really slap happy. we pulled over, only to find that the dodgy hire trailer has lost a wheel. We never did find it either.
On a side note a rental trailer from the same place had the drawbar snap off. it went careening off and killed some poor basterd.

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Whoa, that would have to be the ultimate horror story. All I can say is thank christ nothing like that happened to us, you'd feel terrible in that situation.

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Nothing like tHat has happened to us YET

I've got two.....1st was 20 or so years ago, towing a 1200 race car with a V8 Holden ute. We were approaching a railway crossing, the lights weren't flashing or anything but the woman in the Corolla in front of us decided to stop anyway !!! We hit the little Toyota so hard the car broke its strops and fired into the back of the ute clearing the tray and smashing into the back of our heads. We were both ok and the driver in front had got a huge shock. We were on State Highway 1 and held up traffic and also a train until things got sorted.. We hauled back to base borrowed another tow wagon and hauled back north to the track with the virtually undamaged Datto.

Story 2. We were A barring an RX2 back from the panel beaters where it had just been straightened after a rally prang. Going around a roundabout the A bar snapped and the Mazda rolled off into a car bending the same chassis rail again...

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what a crap way to go.
gettin killed by a wayward trailer of all things!!

i was thinking of this damn thread the whole way home with my new rally car last sunday....

and thankfully have nothing to add

Man those trailer sway,s really tighten the sphincter, Damn scary stuff!! Lucky the trailer pulled out of it whew!!