For my own entry - I cite the first post in the "TOWING TERMS DEFINED" thread.
When you are pulling a trailer that obviously needs a load distribution hitch, and you don't know the road - it pays to go slow.

~ 'Nuff sedd


"Martha? Did you just see the whole back end of that truck lift up in the air?"
"Why, yes I did."
"DANG! The ALIENS are coming after me agin!!!"

 

Cut the corner out front, hit the neighbors truck and broke a clearance light on our 5 hour old TT when I brought it home the first time.

 

Forgot to disconnect the camper from the house before departing on 3 hr trip. Luckily stopped to meet up with the group when I noticed the cord cover up. "Honey did you unplug the camper? No...?" Drove back to the house to see the cord sticking out of the bottom of the garage door.

Took about an hour to find where to connect the cord to the camper. Now do 2 circle checks

 

When we first took our new fiver to Texas, there is an underpass with 13-2 clearance. I KNEW we should clear it, BUT when faced with that son of a gun, I stopped. I mean I just stopped. Not neccessarily the smartest move, and I know I pissed off a lot of folks, but I let 3 semi's pass me and go under before I was convinced I would fit.

To this day I still cringe when passing through there even though I know for sure I will fit.

 

Been there, done that too. Thanks! You have just taken my embarresment factor down a notch or two. It happened to me at a campground, and, thankfully, the wife can yell REALLY LOUD. She gave me a real scolding afterwards. Now we have come around to a division of labor, I take care of all outside things (power, water, cable, etc.) and she takes care of all inside things. Then we cross check each other. Works for us.

 

This is one that still ticks me off. We were North of Kansas City, MO on I 35 and got off onto the side road to get to an RV park for the night near Kearny. I noticed the overpass coming up and clearance was 13' 2" and I knew I was at 12' 5". What I forgot to notice is that the side road had just been resurfaced. BAM! knocked of the front air conditioner. $1700 later, we were headed back to Texas.

 

Have your brake controller set really low and getting cut off. Not really the dumbest thing but it is a sure way to get your early morning started. Or the opposite and almost flying through the windshield with it to sensitive.

 

Tried to pull out from under my 5th wheel with the tailgate up. Ouch!

 

Coming back from vacation decades ago, I was pulling a rented fold down tent camper trailer with my minivan. Had my wife, mother in law, and my 2 kids in the van. Took a wrong turn on a rural road , pulled into a small parking lot to turn around, but needed to back up...

Yup, with all the conversations going on in the van, forgot the trailer was back there! When the trailer went to about 90* and the tongue hit the bumper, I suddenly remembered!

When we got home, I used a jack and other tools and managed to get the trailer tongue back into shape. All was well when I returned it.

 

Had a slider hitch and didn't use it on the short bed truck I had

 

I learned a thing or two from my father-in-law. For example, make sure you pull far enough out after you unhook. Yup, he did not and ended up with two nice creases in the top of the bed sides after he lowered it to level it out. That is now high on my checklist when we stop somewhere.

Fortunately our fiver is designed with short bed trucks in mind and I can turn the truck to 90 degrees without tagging the cab. His was not, and he popped the rear window of his truck, not once, but twice, when he forgot the slide the hitch back before doing some maneuvering. Another lesson learned. Even though I do not need to, I will slide it back when we start to park.

And something I (we) have done (the wife reminded me, go figure) was to forget to take out a BAL chock on one side. The truck wasn't happy with the added drag but it did not take me but a few seconds to figure it out.

All of our little oopsies go on a check list on our phones. As long as we use the checklist, we are getting better at forgetting less and less. Really!

 

Yup, sad to say I've done the BAL chock thing too...with the old F150. Also backing into the driveway, I have a cinder block to let me know when to stop. Worked great with the 150, stopped dead on contact. This 6.7 pushed it back another 3 feet before I even noticed I had contacted it. As luck has it, I stopped just short of flattening the gutters on the house.

 

Took a flight with a pal over a thousand miles to pick up his gooseneck 40' two car enclosed trailer and a 1 ton crew-cab dually and big ATV that he bought from another person down there.. He hooked up the truck and trailer, I worked on the electrics and finally got the trailer plug wired right. Drove another 500 miles and parked for the night. Next day we picked up his race car and mine, loaded them into the trailer only to find out that we had to shuffle the big ATV out the side door and move the cars forward and put the ATV in the back of the trailer.. Okay 500 miles to go and everything is going great..
We get home and it's time to unload. First the ATV comes out and then the cars.. He was backing his down the ramp door and I was backing mine up. As soon as I got just about to the back of the trailer it happened..
BAM!!!!!!
The rear of the trailer slams into the ground - he backs off the ramp door and
BAM!!!!!
The front of the trailer slams back down..
Moral of the story - when you're hooking up a gooseneck, it helps ot open up the latch to allow the ball to be captured...
How that bloody trailer stayed hooked up to that truck is a mystery....

 

You know - the usefulness of a sense of humor is that it transforms human misery into a learning medium for ourselves and others.
I mean - the price we paid (or nearly did) had better be helpful to somebody,

So I hope.


You can hear warnings about NOT TO DO a thing. But these stories bring it home, don't they?
And yeah, when you look back at it - they funny.


We could build a list of what to do and not do - but until it is seen or experienced as to why it is, it just doesn't make it all the way INSIDE
And sometimes the price is - heavy


Although on the other hand - it is sometimes (if we are fortunate) absolutely hilarious!


"DO NOT pull that handle yet!"
"You mean this one?"
(disgusting noises)

"YEAH! The one for the fookin' BLACK TANK you SOD!!!"
~Annonymous Australian traveller






"I suppose we can always clear away all this mess tomorrow..."
"Here's a shovel."
"D'ya mean me?"
"Well who caused it then?"

"BLAST!"

 

Not sure how to explain this one, but it's a lesson I don't think I'll ever forget.

Was parking the truck in a town only a short drive from my home, and didn't think much about it. At my house, I park at the curb regularly with no issues.

However, in this town, they like to place the streetlights right up against the curb, and due to the camber of the street vs the angle of the sidewalk/lamppost, I managed to get myself pretty well wedged against that lamppost. I tried going back an inch, and it appeared to get worse. I tried going forwards an inch, and it appeared to get worse. I ended up getting ticked off (even more) and just pulled ahead away from the curb, and rubbed off the front awning support, as well as one of my clearance lights.

I did a little "good enough" repair with some zip-ties, swore at my family and drove home.

I was so angry when I took that thing in for a proper repair. I'm sure the guy at my local shop thought I was mad at him. Poor dude . . . .