[CPW2007]

Don't know anymore than what is in the link but it's a reminder to those of us that tow cars behind our motorhome on an A frame. 8O 8O

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/8053748.stm

Regards

Chris

 

[GerryD]

OOOOOps!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[sweetie]

Oops how do you explain that one to the insurance company
Lucky it was spotted or could have been m/h as well.
Steve

 

[CurlyBoy]

Ooooops

Hi we saw a similar thing when leaving Shepton Mallet show two years ago, the car was behind a large RV, he had forgotten to knock the car out of gear so the engine was being driven, this caused the front tyres to catch fire and then the car!
curlyboy

 

[peedee]

Write yourself out a check list in much the same way as one for the motorhome and get the other half to go through it before you move off. You can do it a 1000 times and not forget but one day you will. It is easy to get distracted and getting the other half to check with you makes sure you do not forget.

peedee

 

[Rosbotham]

The way I safeguard against this is to always reverse my MH to approx 1 yard away from the Smart, then physically pull the Smart to the towball...you soon realise if it's in gear or the handbrake's on. NB the gearstick on a Smart is an electrical connection...position of the stick is no indicator of whether it's actually in gear or not (I can confirm - have had the stick in the "N" position when it was actually in gear before now).

The scenario that really terrifies me is one of the tyres giving out. I've had a puncture on the rear wheel of Smart before and it's gone down flat enough to shred the tyre. Luckily I was driving the Smart at time so smelt the burning (not so lucky that it was on a Sunday afternoon in wilds of Yorkshire moors with no mobi coverage, but that's another tale). Had this happened while I was towing, I know I wouldn't have been aware until other drivers flagged me down....can't see Smart in wing mirrors and reversing camera is focussed on towbar/A-frame/front of Smart.

There's more of us out there, incidentally. Got back from Ravenglass today and counted 6 different MHs with towcars on site.

 

[richardjames]

I have always been concerned about this so what I do is pull my TOAD physically when I connect to the MH. This tells me that it is out of gear and the hand brake is off 8O 8O

 

[SpeedyDux]

Another illustration why towing a car on an a-frame is too risky to allow in a long tunnel. I don't blame the tunnel operators for making rules against this.


SD