Sometimes if the setup of the trailer lends itself to it you can catch the tongue with the chains but there's tons of trailers out there that even jack not withstanding it is not possible to have enough slack to turn while having so little slack the trailer will not touch the ground if the chains are needed. I own one of them. I also own a really tall trailer that you'd almost have to try to set up in a way the chains won't catch.

The point of crossing the chains is to make it nigh on impossible for dimwits to set the chains up with so little slack that you limit your ability to turn without pulling the chains tight and breaking stuff.

Since we're all idiots who love an appeal to authority here I'll mention that Uhaul has been going away from chains, which can be adjusted in length, to coiled cables which cannot (though I think they'll eventually move back because cables suck to handle). If catching the tongue is so important why are the professionals forgoing the opportunity to do that?

 

My hitch shank is too long for my chains to cross, hopefully if the mess goes amuck the rip cord locks the brakes.

 

The towed truck is probably over 3,000 lbs. Doesn't a towed vehicle like that require active brakes? It looks like a 4 pin cable is used that is going to provide only brake and turn lights.

 

The manual jack I had on my trailer would not raise the foot super high. Most times I never took the foot off, though I knew I should have because eventually it rubbed pretty hard coming out of a parking lot with a deep dip and it bent the foot. I replaced the jack with an electric jack, and this one will suck the foot way up! And, the foot is adjustable, so I can leave the foot in lace, but really tuck it way up there. I have no worries about this one rubbing... But, thinking about it coming unhitched and the chains catching it, considering how low the previous jack hung, I imagine that the foot would have simply been ripped right off pretty quickly should that happen. With the one I have now, the trailer hitch would pretty much be in the ground by the time the jack foot started hitting.

 

On i71 every Sat morning, heavily drugged mexicans haul auctioned turds back somewhere south. Usually one auctioned car, towing another auctioned car. In a string of at least 3 pairs. And the one decent van they came with, towing another clunker. Theyre just rigged together like the pic in the OP. Nothing safe or legal about it.

Its not uncommon to see them blocking a ramp sometimes, because their jalopy fell apart. I leave early, and have had to dodge them many times. Ive seen them in a few accidents too.

 

Yes, that's what that picture reminded me of. I see them a lot on I-25 heading south.

 

I live in San Antonio, we see those all the time around here. We call them "Taco Trains".

I was once in mild traffic just south of San Antonio heading towards Corpus Christi and decided I needed to wash the bugs off my windshield. Looked in my rearview mirror and the driver of the Taco Train behind me had his arm out the window trying to wipe the water that had came off my truck and landed on his windshield off with his hand. Guess the windshield wipers on his wrecked auction jalopy tow vehicle didn't work (or he did know how to turn them on).

And yeah, I can see how they would cause accidents , they're always going like 50 mph on an interstate when the speed limit is 80 ( and most people are driving at or above that speed limit), so you run up on them pretty fast.
...

 

Because Uhaul is about the furthest thing from a professional you can get. They are renting trailers, and therefore have to appeal to the lowest common denominator - I've seen people pulling Uhaul trailers who shouldn't be towing ANYTHING. Have almost been hit by Uhaul trucks and trailers many times.

 

See them on the i5 coming down from Oregon (or somewhere N) after dropping/picking up our Sno-cats, cept all of them look philippino, same thing, 2 junkers hooked together in some sort of modified catastrophe waiting to happen, usually in groups of 3 or 4, and yep, going 45-50 absolutely screwing up traffic through the mtn passes, not sure why CHP doesn't bring the hammer down on them 🙄 they are an obvious safety hazard. I almost took a few of them out coming down the grade, when after they had fixed whatever broke, they decided to just mosey on into the R lane just around the corner maybe going 30... brakes/horn, choice words and fortunately I was able to maneuver around them...

And on the 5th wheel commentary... I've only ever had one come loose (in a whole bunch of yrs and miles) and that's because the idiot hooking it up (ME) was interrupted mid-connection, and when he came back, forgot to go back to the step he was on and LATCH it, luckily it only ended up destroying my tailgate, as when I let the clutch out to start backing up my brain clicked I hadn't set the latch, so I gently pushed the clutch back in, truck stopped but... trailer was on enough of an incline that gravity did gravity and the trailer slid out and into the tailgate. That's a mistake you only do once 🤦‍♂️ one would hope! In all my years of large trucks/semi's, Marine Corps LVS's, Vehicle Recovery (was a 3523) I've never had a 5'ver come off prior to that.

And @Antonm23 that's quite the large house you are towing!! Looks like quite the delightful "home away from home"!

Crossed chains are not an "old wives tail" if, and IF done correctly, they do work as intended, used the same inherent design when towing large 5-ton+ trucks with towbars and a bunch of *hit we had to redneck engineer retrieving/towing crap in Saudi back to the ports to load on MPS ships. The whole idea is to keep the trailer/towed vehicle from taking off on it's own and endangering other traffic, and it works, IF the effort is put in to do it right.

 

Seems like they leave their motels early here, and are often doing that 60mph on the dark highway with no lights on, or maybe 1 dim one.

 

Yes, they do. That's the first thing I thought of after I thought "freaking straps???"
I guess it's possible that they have a Brake Buddy in the cab, running off of the towed vehicle's battery, and they check it every so often to make sure it isn't dead. Judging by the safety straps, they must be very safety oriented, right?

 

. . . and it is often a combination like a Ford Fusion towing another Ford Fusion and also a Chevy Cruze or similar.

So . . . a 3,500 pound car rated to tow probably 2,000 pounds towing ( 3,500 + 3,000 = ) 6,500 pounds, and likely without any dinghy brakes.

 

Most likely not..