Thanks to an unknown campervan driver in France.
Last Wednesday afternoon we were driving from St Quentin to Dieppe on the Autoroute, when a grey UK campervan pulled past us, hooted frantically, and the driver gesticulated about something upwards on our 'van. Luckily we were close to an emergency layby, so I pulled in.
Puzzling - it's a pop-top with no roof vents so couldn't be one of those flapping, all windows and hatches were closed, lights were fine ... then at my wife's suggestion I checked the pop-top itself. Of course, with everything stationary it appeared fine, but indeed it wasn't clicked down at the front, so must have been rising in the wind. It's something I always but always check, but wasn't feeling too well that day with a stomach thing, so evidently had failed to click it in place when setting off.
So if it was you, and you passed an 04 reg black Volvo towing a tiny Rapido pop-top with a loose roof, thank you enormously! You probably saved us a very stressed roof assembly, if it had gone on much longer.
Comments
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Fair question, but the car's interior mirror shows only up as far as the top of the caravan's front window, and the wing mirrors/extensions don't show the top either, unless I crouch and crane my head down to an awkward level not really concomitant with safe driving! And it only would have pulled up when we were at auto-route speed, I guess, as nobody on the previous D routes had indicated anything.
As you'll see from the attached, it's only the top, something around 30cm, that folds down.
Maybe I'd have checked more often if I'd not been feeling grotty.
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Hedgehurst, yours is not an isolated incident. I also have a pop top, an Eriba and cannot see the roof in my mirrors. There have been several reports of the roof being up when towing because the catches have failed. You have been comparatively lucky.
Colin
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I had similar with a Heiki roof light ..... somebody (EmilysMum 🙄) had opened the roof light when cleaning inside the caravan but had not latched it back down again, so soon as we got to any kind of speed on the motorway, the roof light lifted. No amount of mirrors could have seen it while driving, it was a passing car that alerted us to it.
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We been notified and have ourselves notified the caravan tuggers about an open Heki and we also had a side locker fly open, the lock had broken, so that was fun. Thankfully there are people out there willing to warn you, and we will do the same.
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I tug my Sister's caravan with a Fiat Ducato Camper with mirrors that wouldn't look small on a wardrobe door and I couldn't see that the roof light was open.
It was only after a torrid time on the M40, when a car driver pulled alongside and seemed to be giving me the finger, that I realised he wasn't and was instead pointing to the top of the caravan.
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