Oops - RTC involving caravan
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He possibly did brake DD, but by then it was way too late. If he had to brake, he was going too fast. Prevention is always preferable to cure. Overtaking another big vehicle is always a risk when towing, because of the drag. Doing it at speed just ramps up the risk. My guess is the HGV was probably close to 60mph, so what the tow car was doing in terms of mph, must have been greater. He certainly went past quick enough.
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It certainly ruined his day. How many, in a blinding hurry to get somewhere, end up either not getting there at all or delaying their and many others journeys in the consequent traffic jams caused by accidents. It's a pity that Aesop's Fables are no longer as well known.
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What annoys me is because cars are so fast on pick up now they race of and just about brake at junctions . Not slowing down for a junction greasy road or ice oops
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There is so much bad driving on our roads today, the lack of care, attention and common sense is staggering to behold. We regularly see caravans being towed without extra towing mirrors fitted and we see plenty of caravans which are going too fast and are clearly not stable.
We've just returned from Wales and as we were heading north towards the A66 a caravan overtook us at speed just before entering Kirkby Stephen. They then had to slam their brakes on as the road is very narrow there and we were stuck behind them until our turn off, as they sped up and then braked hard several times: it was terrifying and completely unnecessary.
With regard to caravans being overloaded; friends of ours have just purchased a caravan and we had to tell them that they'd completely overloaded their caravan; every nook and cranny was stuffed full, including wooden garden table and chairs!! They'd bought the caravan from Ebay and knew nothing at all about payloads and kerb weights etc.
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This is a oops.
The crash is horrendous but idiotic behaviour starts at walking pace.
The river at York over winter shrunk the bridge.
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At least the little dog was ok, they were the innocent party in accident, surely the driver should have know better. We know that stretch of dual carriageway there are some tramline in the road surface and some breaks in the trees either side of the dual carriageway. Catch a cross wind and the tramlines at the same time can make life interesting, hence we keep down to 50 ish.
Add overtaking a truck downhill at speed, add them all up and you have the recipe for an accident.
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As I said up thread it happened to us, we didn't crash thankfully but it was touch and go.
We believe it was a combination of events,
1, overtaking a lorry.
2, going under a motorway bridge straight after overtaking.
3, The most important one, the rear of the van was we think to heavy. It was a rear twin bed with a 4 draw cabinet between them, big overhead lockers and both the beds had storage space.
Thankfully we are not ignorant having towed for 33+ years so we didn't use every little space. However that did not stop the back end from wagging.
We safely got to out destination where we did some reorganising of equipment. For the rest of that holiday we were very cautious and on return we had ATC fitted. It does make a difference as it operates far faster than a human can.
The rest of our time owning that van was uneventful but it took the pleasure off going away and I became so nervous we eventually moved to a MH.
After 6 years of MH we are once again back to a caravan but we will not have another van of that size and layout, as much as we liked it. Far to long behind the wheels and not a stable van if the loading isn't just right which is easy to get wrong even with years of experience.
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So glad that there were no serious injuries.
When I first saw the video, I thought the cause was a combination of excess speed, natural overtaking 'pull' and overloading. I have to say, I have a thing about overloading and poor user payload at the moment. I'm sure many folk are not really aware of the weight of the stuff they put in their vans, and the manufacturers seem to think it is OK to keep producing caravans with a payload that can barely take a box of matches! (exaggeration there!! 🙂)
David
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I agree with you: when we first got our Sprite Major I was overjoyed at how much storage was under the fixed bed. However, I quickly realized that if I did make use of it (with 2 water barrels, wastemaster, awning, chairs etc) it would be completely overloaded. Luckily we have a Mitsubishi L200 long back so everything we need fits in there and we can keep the caravan within weight limits.
I do feel that the combination of new caravans with a "payload that can barely take a box of matches!" and modern cars with much less boot space are contributing to the problem. (Our old Xtrail was a great tow car, but we couldn't even fit our two dog crates in the boot of the latest models nevermind anything else).
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We do exactly the same. So much stuff goes in the car. We have a Discovery, so the boot is fairly large if you don't us the fold down seats at the back. We've got into the habit of using serviced pitches wherever possible, so that we leave the wastemaster and aquaroll at home. We use the small fold down bucket produced by Colapz that has a 'ball cock' device attached instead of the larger aquaroll these days.
Agree entirely with all your comments.
David
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I also have a Discovery, and have obtained a mesh shelf that sits in the boot where the cover blind pulls out. This allows all sorts of stuff to be piled on top, while still allowing easy access to what is underneath.
At full capacity that can be three "Clever Crates" on top and five underneath. With much space at sides as well. Showroom salesman trying to claim Discovery 5 had as good a load capacity as Discovery 3/4 was quite miffed whan I brough in eight crates and asked him to load them!
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