You can’t park there, mate!
Interesting; my understanding is that this happens when there’s insufficient tongue weight and can be resolved by engaging trailer brakes or accelerating gently.
But this just looks like the tow vehicle might not have been up to the job.
It’s because they suddenly switched from going downhill to going uphill, and didn’t correct their driving to account for that. Going downhill, they were likely accelerating to get past the traffic. So the boat was actually being pulled downhill. Then when the slope began to change, they stopped accelerating because they were past the traffic.
This means the boat’s inertia was suddenly pushing the car, rather than being pulled by it. If they had continued accelerating up the hill, (and thus, kept pulling the boat) they would have been fine. But since they were starting to slow down, (and the boat was pushing them from behind) they essentially got PIT maneuvered as soon as the back end wasn’t perfectly straight.
Either way, the correct solution would have been to accelerate. But inexperienced trailer drivers often panic and brake as soon as a wobble starts, which only makes it worse. Imagine the trailer being held by a rope instead of a ball hitch. You’d want to keep tension on that rope constantly, so it doesn’t go slack. Because if you put slack in that rope, the trailer will try to veer off in one direction or the other, and you’ll be along for the ride. That’s essentially what happened here. They went from pulling the trailer to being pushed by the trailer.
Actually the reason it starts to swerve is because the boat trailer is moving faster than the tow vehicle; at least that is the impression I get by the fact the boat tires are turning faster than the tow vehicles (swervy line longer than straight).
Personally I think had they applied a little trailer brake (not truck brake) going down the hill, it wouldn’t have been able to fishtail like that. Probably shouldn’t go off what a random internet stranger says, but while I’ve had a couple trailers get squirrelly in my life, none have done that.
During my youth I was working at a mobile fast food stand
Once we needed to take the highway to jump in on a job and my boss just jokingly told me to look into the mirror
The fucking fast food trailer was jumping a meter to each sideHe was having quite some fun provoking it by accelerating, because it started around a specific speed
So in that case it was probably an aerodynamic issue - at least it seemed like thatWe weren’t going downhill or uphill, and the only difference was our speed when the jumping started
The swerving starts in the middle of the downhill portion. By the time they start going up hill it looks very out of control.
With that said, I think the principles of your comment are true and I could see a case where they felt the first wiggle going downhill and brake causing the crash.
I believe U-Haul has demo videos on exactly this
It sucks to learn a lesson this way when they could have learned it by reading any of the paperwork that came with each component, or watching a video about it, or not ignoring all the various people who have already likely tried to explain it in person.
At worst, the slowest of those methods of learning the lesson would have been an hour or less of their time. This way is gonna cost hundreds or thousands of hours. And worse, could have cost forever, or someone else’s forever, or multiple.
Motorcycle wobble can be resolved in two ways:
Slowing down: this makes the wobbles frequency slower but bigger (til it disappears)
Speeding up 😱: wobble frequency gets faster so actually more stable. Gotta have the HP to do so though.
Here it feels like it’s just uneven loading or just not made for those speeds.
Seems like there was too much weight, too far towards the back. OTOH, not sure how he could have loaded it to get that bad?
There could have been added lift generated at the higher speed as well, especially in the bow area of the boat.
Boats are also super tail heavy, so boat trailers usually have the axle(s) mounted further back. Whatever the when towing something, patience and smoothness will keep you out of most of the trouble.
They were going downhill towards that bridge. Once they reached the lowest point (the bridge), they would naturally start slowing down and the boat would be pushing into the car, making the connection point want to go in a perpendicular direction from where the vehicles are going + at the same time the wobble gets worse because of the deceleration.
If they had been descending slower in a controlled manner, then they would have had enough power margin at the bottom to accelerate out of the pickle, but instead it seems like they sped downhill at max power, so they had no margin left. The vehicle was probably more than adequate for the job, but speeding down hill is usually not part of the job description of towing.
You think? this cretin is passing not one but TWO cars at high speed, uphill, towing a boat! might is below understatement.
Uphill? This looks a lot like downhill to me
At least they waited until the part of the road with the barriers to have their crash.
But also managed to block the whole road from the looks of it 😂
Going by the back log of cars on this road I would say the lead car was doing 10 to 20 under the limit.
Pretty standard for rural Australia roads with people on holidays.
Bloke with the boat was probably just on their way home.
20k under the limit when you’re going 200kms away really adds up.
Ok so hear me out. At 100km/hr that 200km journey will take 2 hrs. At 80km an hour that journey would take 2 1/2 hrs.
People are really this stupid to save 30 minutes?
Also worth noting in reality this wouldn’t happen the whole journey.
People don’t drive like that. We aren’t calculating time saved or not. We get into a driving flow state and try to keep that felt experience of driving alive. Learning when to let that go for safety of yourself and others is an important and humbling skill.
He has now saved a lot of time.
The highway is a fickle mistress
Well, that’s certainly one way to learn that.
on tow
What dialect says ‘on’ vs ‘in’, as in “in danger”, “in mind”, “in case”, or “in hand”? Is is the same people who say they are waiting “on line” instead of “in line”?
A person whose first language isn’t English?
Don’t sweat it. Prepositions are weird. As an ace English student, I still sometimes question my usage in comments.
“Is is the same people”
Is is? What dialect is that from?
‘On hand’ is a very common expression in all types of english. But British english is what you’re thinking of. I happen to think ‘on tow’ makes a lot more sense than in tow, as a shorthand for ‘on a tow rope/line’ whereas in danger is a shorthand for ‘in a situation or place of danger’.
