Dangerous and careless
Every year I witness the same events, non more than this year. I cannot believe how irresponsible/stupid/negligent/lazy the vast majority of caravan owners are. This year I watched 10 caravans hitch up at New England Bay site, this is what I noted:
0/10 checked nose weight, 2 of these ended badly "nose up"
0/10 checked car or caravan tyre pressures before leaving
0/10 performed a lights check on the van, I know modern cars have canbus systems that inform of faults, but still a good safety precaution,required if you have an older vehicle.
0/10 did a site clear check to ensure no rubbish was left behind
I also noted no one letting the tyres down on the towing car whilst the van was on site at the begining of thier holiday.
These are all basic things which are not being done, all vital to succesful and safe motoring and enjoyable caravanning.
Several outfits were clearly overloaded, the husband was in the company car ( underpowered) a vast selection of bikes on the roof, a boot laden with every thing that the 2.2 children can play with, and as stated the van heavily laden, I would like to invite
the police to do a lot of weight checking of vans. The latest craze is also to have a small inflatable boat and outboard, but that is another shocking subject.
There is a program coming up on CH5 called carry on caravaning people with older or restored caravans. Do people have thier caravans serviced each year, vital on older caravans, with aging gas appliances and systems.
I dont believe it as someone once said.
Comments
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But did you have a nice holiday XR770? Visit anywhere nice, have a good time, actually get off site?
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Well if I had been on-site you would have had 0/11 for the nose weight! Why? Because I only ever check it if I'm carrying my maximum amount of gear, otherwise I know for certain it will be well under.
When carrying my max (ie bikes in van etc) I always check it before setting off. Why would I want to check it every time I hitch up? It's packed the same way each time and apart from a bit of food and drink either bought or eaten it's not going to change.
It's no wonder I don't like using sites that much.
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Have you got a clipboard, XR770?
To quote your own words "I don't believe it".
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Whilst I will admit to not doing all these things, it was so predictable that someone would reply with a comment about the op being some sort of saddo that never leaves the site.
Believe it or not, it is a requirement of driving a car that you have a pair of eyes. You also need a brain that can retain some of the information seen through those eyes. That, I suspect, is what the op has done.
In reply to the op.......I do check the lights. The caravan tyre pressures and wheel nuts I check before leaving home and don't consider it necessary to do it again on site. The car tyres I leave as they are.......probably somewhere between the fully laden
and normally laden pressure. I don't own a nose weight gauge but the capacity of our 4x4 is huge, so unlikely to be exceeded. Our caravan is lightly laden, because we carry most things in the car, don't own an awning and again, the car has a huge weight capacity
and plenty of power.0 -
Ho ho ho OP, I was just going to ask the same.
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Why do you think I asked about the clipboard?
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Didn't mention torquing the wheel nuts. What about oil and water levels in the towcar. Negligent I call it.
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CT just gets better, just when I thought I'd seen/read everything. . . .
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I lurve new england bay ! Its one of my top sites
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Over the top for me. If the nose weight was right when you set off then it should be in order when you move on.
We do check the lights and the pitch usually although have left the odd thing from time to time.
The idea of letting the tres down once on site is ludicrous although probably most never put the pressure up in the first place!
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Hmmm , don't you think the 'nose weight' apply's to the " noser " !! ?? 
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Checked the nose weight last year and it was under the 100kgs for our outfit. Since then nothing new has gone into the locker. In fact I'm in the doghouse as we run out of gas a fortnight ago.....The positive is I don't need to check it again till we get
home after nearly 3,500 miles towing.0 -
By the time the OP had arrived on site and moved his outfit into position, set up his water containers, let down his tyres, sorted his steadies, set up a washing line, erected an awning, checked if the toilets were satisfactory, reported
a couple of caravans to the Warden for not being where they should be in relation to the peg, put up a pen for his dog to walk around, set the TV aerial for his favourite programmes in the right direction and tuned the device, plugged in the hook up, erected
his flags and displayed some fairy lights, covered his tow ball, covered his nose, cleared up the rubbish left by the previous tenant of the pitch, took out his clipboard and noted what everyone else did it was time to do everything in reverse and go home.What his missus/partner did during this process is best left to the imagination but at least he saved on cups of tea as he wouldn't have had time to sup them!
Motorhome – stop, cup of tea, enjoy holiday, go home.
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Hi - as someone who is new back to the world of caravans after some 12 years away, but totally new to the caravan club, i can safely say I am gob smacked with this thread!!!
The fact that someone has the time to carry out an audit on the behaviours and actions of other caravaners - "get a life" springs to mind. I for one intend to enjoy me leisure time and not to worry about what others are doing OR not doing.
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Think I might be tempted to give up caravanning if I thought I had to remember to do all that lot every time I set off - still, nice to think that if we're ever on site with the OP he'd helpfully come over to remind us what we'd missed - I'd be able to give
him a couple of words of advice about travelling!0 -
I am feeling rather embarrassed as apart from the nose weight I do all the checks the op mentioned without fail.
My nose weight does not need checking as we always load the van in the same way. on our VW Tiguan we do need to increase our tyre pressure when towing and decrease it when we unhitch - it really does make a difference but I appreciate other people's cars
may be different.We always check the lights and once I left my partner behind and she wasn't best pleased, so I now check that she is not left on the pitch when I leave
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I check the lights and pitch to make sure I haven't left anything, otherwise that's it. We have TPS but even without I always run my tyres at full load pressure. And once I have worked out how to load the van why do i need to check the nose weight every
time? My brain as addled as it is, can actually remember how and where to put the contents to get the same nose weight for the journey home. The type of caravanner the OP refers to will not have a clue about anything related to towing so commenting on here
is useless.0 -
I also check everything except the nose weight. As this once checked should remain constant, as we load the van the same. Tyre pressures are checked via the TPS. I do reduce the pressures on site if we are going to use the car a lot, as it handles better solo with lower pressures. However, in most cases it hardly moves, so they remain unchanged. Do check the oil very occasionally but that also comes up as oil level OK every time I start up, so hardly necessary.
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We do pretty much the same on leaving a pitch as we did when we caravaned. I check the lights are ok, OH drives off pitch, I give it a quick check to make sure nothing has been forgotten, jump in then off. Van/caravan is always packed up the same so no need
to keep checking. With the trailer in tow we do as we did with the caravan, stop a short way down the road OH jumps out and gives the outfit the once over to make sure everything is ok, no brakes locked on, no cables dangling, no lockers popped open etc. never
bothered about tyres as we never stayed anywhere for more than a couple of nights even with the caravan and we tended to use bikes rather than the car.0 -
Whoa! Rein in there Guys! Its too easy to take the Micky and lose sight of the big picture. Actually I have most of those actions written down on a laminated pre flight checklist!
OK several of them are noteional ones, such as noseweight, but I do check it off in my mind, lets face it it is important! I would submit that a physical check might not be required, but it is important that you do remember any changes that your holiday might have created, - heavy booze for example. How many vans have you seen en route with locker doors open, roof lights open, obviously out of balance fore & aft? So lets not take the micky, - that last check around to see that the break away cable is on, the stabilisor lever is engaged, the nose wheel is up and locked are all important, and a check list is valuable in that respect!
Well said OP!
TF
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