So this week, BangShift.com’s West Coast headquarters have been mobile. We decided to take an extended trip back home from the Pleasanton Goodguys show and have been traveling through some of California’s nicest coastal towns via Highway 1. It’s a great trip, and we’re having fun, but have noticed some interesting things with regards to trailers on this trip. We are pulling a 21 foot travel trailer behind the $200 Hauler, which is kicking ass by the way, and are trying to decide which of these two things is more annoying. Is it the guy who clearly has no trailer towing experience and/or skill? Or is the people on the road who have no understanding or consideration for the guy pulling a trailer? We’ve been bothered by both on this trip, but we know from experience that everyone has some cool trailer towing story that gets them all fired up, and just about every one has to do with either not knowing what you are doing while towing, or having been harassed on the road by some jack hole who doesn’t know what he’s doing behind the wheel when near someone with a trailer.
So…Which is more annoying? The guy with no skill and/or experience? Or the guy that doesn’t care about you when you are towing a trailer near him?
Let us know! Oh, and tell us your crazy trailer towing stories! We have some coming.
I would say the trailer puller. If you are going to buy/tow a trailer, you have the responsibility to know how to do it right. It is like riding a motorcycle, if you are going to do it, you damn well better learn how to do it right before you get out on the road.
That isn’t to say people who don’t know how to deal with other vehicles towing a trailer are obnoxious as hell, but they aren’t the one who brought the trailer out onto the road.
this happened to me towing a trailer …..
I went to Baton Rouge to drop off a 99 mustang I had that was totaled by insurance due to a recent tropical storm that put 3 1/2 feet of water in the car, it was being horse traded for some other stuff and a mazda mini truck. I did the deal and was heading back early sunday morning after a couple of days of rain. Im in a new at the time a 1998 F-150 xcab short bed w/ towing package which ad all the good stuff, limited slip, 3.73 gears, brakes, trans cooler yadda yadda and I was pulling a 18 foot car trailer. We loaded the truck backwards since it wasnt running but pushed the truck all the way forward to get the engine over the rear axle of the trailer. So with saying my good byes I hit the road to get back home and as im merging onto the I-12 just east of Baton Rouge im coming up to speed doing round 60 I get passed by a 18 wheeler at a speed that seemed like he was doing close to a 100. The amount of air that big rig was pushing moved the trailer to the right and hit some HUGE rumble strips on the shoulder causing the trailer to start boucing around and next thing I know its fish tailing on me and before I can react the trailer has come completely around goes into the bed side thus turning me around 180 degrees now facing on coming traffic going backwards with a trailer at 45-50 mph now and now the trailer is doing the driving and im along for the ride, I get pulled off the interstate 50 some odd feet into a ditch – mind you the area had 2 days of rain and now the truck and trailer are in 2 feet of mud. the truck on the trailer … never budged, didnt even move, coarse I had four 3 inch wide ratchet straps holding it down but no ive got a truck with a jacked up bed side, stuck, I mean STUCK. With a quick call to my friend who only lived 5 miles away and another call to one of his buddies that owned a tow truck I got unstuck rather quickly then drove down to the next exit to survey the damage better. Upon driving I thought I flat spotted the tires with all the skidding but I had so much mud in the wheels it threw them off balance so spending 10 bux at the car wash to wash off as mud as I could and unloading the truck on the trailer and reloading it facing forward I hit the round again … cautiously
A week later my friend calls me and tells me there was another accident bout a 1/4 mile down the road in the same this time there wasnt mud and this person who also was pulling a trailer with a car on it got turned around, went off the road backwards and was killed when his tow vehicle went into the tree line on the other side of the ditch and was killed. Seems along I-12 the rumble strips were cut too deep causing people to loose control of their vehicles causing a large number of accidents and the company that did the work had to go out and fix their F up
I think it would be the person who has no towing experience. If he had experience, then he would know what to do when he encounters the jerk who has no respect for anyone towing a trailer.
You know you don’t have to be towing a trailer or riding a bike to figure out; drivers now a days are more rude, daring and/or crazy. They seem to wanna get in your way or run over you. I don’t get it!
If we’d all get going the same speed, relax a little and give a little, we’d all get to where we’re going faster and safer. Show some courtesy to others and life will be good.
In NJ, ‘courtesy’ is a four letter word.
I like the old folks who forget they are towing anything and when they pass you they try to pull into your lane just as their rear wheels of their vehicle passes your front ones
For a great towing experience, put a race car on a car hauler and leave Dallas Raceway in Crandall heading west, timing it so you hit 635 south then west on I-20 about 5PM on any weekday. Stop just the other side of Fort Worth and get a big ice cream cone and maybe a couple of Cherry Mashes because you’re gonna need it. We pulled through there on a Thusday evening heading for the Bracket Finals – when I think about it, my brain comes back with the climatic Death Star battle scene from Star wars.
Been there done that. I was pulling a car I got from my brother in law in Phoenix through there a couple years ago. I hit the Metroplex at about 5:30PM on Friday. Got to my sister’s house in Rowlett at about 7.
Another fun adventure is pulling a trailer through Atlanta at about the same time.
How about both. What get’s me most though is the jackhole that’s obviously never pulled a trailer trying to tell you how to back one into a tight place.
I watched a guy one time take 10 minutes to back a 16′ utility trailer into a space big enough to back a whole tractor trailer rig into. He only managed to hit the trailers on both sides once each.
I freely admit that I am a terrible trailer driver, so maybe I just have more sympathy for the poor schmuck pulling a rented car trailer with a rented U-Haul box truck. I vote for people who are too oblivious to give that driver a few extra yards of clearance.
Brian, you wanna tell ’em the Red Ball Express trailer story, when we almost got stuck in the mud at that shuttered drag strip in upstate NY? I.E., the time when you had that F-250 at redline for like 5 minutes straight?
How about the jack ass that that isn’t paying attention to you pulling an empty open car trailer and runs into it when he changes lanes.
Just frosts your gonads doesn’t it?