Post your trailer towing horror story

[Abominable]

I was thinking about this on my way up the hill yesterday: Towing a trailer full of high dollar toys on slick roads happens all the time in our sport, something bad is bound to happen. Thankfully I've never had a major accident but I've had a few scary incidences where Ive puckered hard enough to give the truck seat a hickey!
What's your story?

 

[HawkShot99]

Not sleds, but this summer I was towing my 1 place mower trailer. While going up a hill one of the bolts holding on the tounge snapped. Then all the force was on the one reamaing bolt. The trailer started swirving all over the road behind me, as I slowed down. Then finally that bolt let go, and the trailer was doing 360's across the other lain into a persons front lawn. Luckely No cars were around, and the only damage was the trailer.

 

[BigT]

Bro and I heading up one morning. Steep hill into the snow park about 250' long. Got the front tires of his Dakota cresting the top and started slideing backwards. $30,000 plus for the truck, he had a Powder special and I had/still have a Polaris 650. Neither of the sleds were worth a great deal and neither was the trailer but---huge pucker factor. I wasn't driving and I gave the seat a hicky like was mentioned earlier.
BUT, fortunately for us the trailer jackknifed and hit a snow bank and bro got the truck stopped without any damage to the sleds, trailer or truck.
We unloaded the sleds, turned the truck down hill and was able to drive out of the jackknife. Way lucky on that one.
We got up to the snow park and a guy with a enclosed 4 place said he did about the same thing.
All was good though and no damage.

BigT

 

[Wyoming T/A]

not sledding but on our way to wyoming in the big move we were in cleavland, oh and we were kinda like the clampets on the big move..i was in a light duty 99-f250[[Glorified station wagon] and towing a 24 v nose trailer with all out good furnature and crap--VE was behind in a rented U-haul towing the new race car 0n a trailer,we had just built and my wife and his were following in a car..we had 2 way radios and i passed a slow car and was waiting for the all clear to pull back in..when i got it i started right and daughter-in-law screamed--some jerk in a sports car shot between me and VE and started up the right side of me so i yanked the steering and the big SWAY started..took me about 500 feet to gather it up..VE called and said he could read the writing on both sides of the trailer and when he looked in the mirror he said he was white as Michael Jacksons glove..about 10 miles up the road saw a surburban and a trailer down in the meadium jacknifed..WE SLOWED down a little...thats my story and i'm stickin to it

 

[Meatman]

We were head back from laramie last year and we were countin trucks and trailers in the ditch...i was sittin in the passenger seat and I was lookin out the window when my view started changing and I was beginning to get more of a straigt on shot of the median. the 2 guys in the back were kinda laugiing and joking...I calmly grabbed the oh shyt handle and said "here we go" The cab turned to dead silence as the angle of the truck and trailer calmly went from a nice perfectly normal 180 degrees to a white knuckled increasingly ever so present obtuse angle. I have no idea how or why but somehow the truck and trailer straightend itself back out. We were towing a very large enlcosed trailer not sure how long but could fit 6 long tracks... whew my old man can drive

 

[Gold5th]

No where as good as the other stories... but I've been hauling a 2 place open for the last week or so.. every friggin time I'm in the city some twit tries to put the trailer through their side windows...

I try to drive in an outside lane so I only have to worry bout traffic on one side of the trailer...

Last night I was leaving the city.. 2 sleds on the trailer.. some twit decided to play pacman around a curve..., cept I was in the lane on his right... I saw and moved more to the right.. so he didn't hit the trailer.... the wife actually told me not to move... and to let him hit us cause it's cheaper that way.. cause if I swirve and hit the ditch, it's my insurance only.. no way to lay fault on the guy who for the lack of a better word, ran us off the road.. and ever 20ft there where tracks of people hitting the ditch.. even saw a brand spanky new ram 4x4 in the ditch... but people around there are wierd.. saw one guy with a chev 2500 HD 4x4 with only 1 wheel in the ditch and he left it.

 

[winter brew]

We had a 4 place enclosed, buddy was towing it with his Chevy. Beautiful, clear sunny morning, long straight road with compact snow/ice and about 1/4 mile ahead we see a guy plowing his driveway with a nice Kubota, pretty good size tractor with a blade. He is going in/out of his driveway and as we get closer (doing about 40mph) he begins to go the other direction towards the road, he is moving slowly and when we get closer we see he is looking down. About 200 feet away he rolls into the road still looking down and we then wonder if he even sees us. We are on a collision course and my buddy made the right choice by flooring it (Whipplecharged454) , as hitting the brakes would have been a for sure head on collision.
He didn't know we were even there until he hit the trailer while still looking down and at this point into the lane farthest from his driveway, we were clear on the right shoulder doing about 60 when the front of the v-nose cought the tractor and spun it completely 360* and tore open the side of the trailer like a tin can. Luckily no one hurt but I'm sure he had a spoonful in his shorts and the trailer was fixable, no other damage.
Bad start to a great day of sleddng.

 

[JSun]

Last year, me and four of my buddies headed to the U.P.
I was driving my dads brand new duramax, with a 27 foot enclosed behind it.
It was snowing something insane.
Forgot I was pulling a trailer for a half second when I realized I was about to drive by the paking lot and hit the brakes, jack-knifed it pretty good. Smashed up the side of the box and the tail-light put a hole in the side of the trailer. Definitely one of the worst days of my life. Thankfully I didn't hit anyone or anything and no one was hurt.

 

[SNOW JW]

Well Friday night I was heading back from Rock Creek with Boostbanger in the back and TurboZig anyways was going real slow around one of the switchbacks as the trailer was trying to push me a bit anyhow when the next thing I know the trailer starts to push the *** end of the truck out from under me. I took the ditch to keep the truck in place and then as I looked out the window and seen the two brand new Nyto's MTX's passing me on the trailer Cab was dead silent as the trailer skidded about 2' or less from the ledge of the road and truck was doing a 180 on the road. Got it all stopped and turned around no damage to the sleds or trailer Just glad the truck was not trying to go over the ledge I could care less about the sleds at that point.

 

[Gold5th]

Just now I almost creamed some ski-doo on a single open.. guy in a blue chev blew a stop sign.... grrr.. lucky everybody I had just taken the trailer with sleds off my car..

 

[Mtntrax]

Coming home from the Expo in West some years back I had a hair raiser going down the road. Suddenly a loud kaboom rolling down the highway about 70 after just coming back up to speed after a little town. When I look in the side mirror the single place trailer is coming around the truck still attached with the chains but there's no tires or axle. The deck is flat on the pavement so I then let off the gas and moderately applied the brakes. At this point it slides into the other lane and into the truck box behind the rear wheel and then flips onto it's side with sparks flying. Now things are going really bad! Trailer or what's left of it then rights itself and I get her stopped. The sled had stayed secure to the deck so only some scratches and cracks in the hood for damage but the side of the box was smucked in pretty good. Apparently a leaf spring had cracked in half which caused it to rip out the axle. Threw the sled into the truck and then came back for the trailer latter. Fortunately nobody was following me or coming the other direction at the time!!

 

[Rixster]

Headign to lake powell, boat loaded with all the goodies for 5 day trip. Sheared the ball. Thank god for good safty chains! Slowed down tell the boat trailer ran under the truck and let it push me off to the side of the road. Trash my trailer jack, and put some dents in the bottom of the rear bumper of the truck but thats it.

 

[Gold5th]

I just remembered one.. not really a horror story.. but no fun never the less.. I was towing my trailer, just a small utility one.. beefy though...

I was driving down a hill , well just cresting it, and as i could see down the other side I gave it a little throttle and the trailer came unhooked.. so it's on chains only.. so I eased off the gas and it went under the car, slammed into the bumper... and bounce back.. so it hit me again.... so once it was agains the bumper I just coasted to a stop...

the ball mount came out from my receiver.... hmmmm

I'm just lucky it didn't puncture my fuel tank... right in front of the hitch...

 

[JMCX]

Way back when we first started getting into sledding decided to build our own three-place around a light tandem axle set we got cheap. WAY over-built that thing, the deck could have supported a tank, and didn't have enough tongue weight. Took it for a loaded test run with the parents Cherokee and when I got up to speed the sways began. I was using all three lanes frantically turning the wheel lock to lock and somehow got it back under control. Never pulled that thing again with less than a 3/4 ton and got rid of it after one season.

 

[adrenaline junkey]

I was thinking about this on my way up the hill yesterday: Towing a trailer full of high dollar toys on slick roads happens all the time in our sport, something bad is bound to happen. Thankfully I've never had a major accident but I've had a few scary incidences where Ive puckered hard enough to give the truck seat a hickey!
What's your story?

Scott passing ya on the way up got ya thinking huh?

 

[sleddin pete]

Driving up to Rabbit Ears a couple years ago.Hit a couple frost heaves at just the right speed,it uncoupled my trailer somehow doing about 55.Truck felt funny and I looked in the rearview mirror to see my trailer seesawing back and forth.Thank God for safety chains.Got it stopped without damage to the truck although the trailer stand plate was worn down about 2 inches.I can still see the groove in US-40 when I head to the Ears(also always slow down for those frost heaves now)

 

[Skogen]

Very Steep hill, snowy road that had slick snow already packed on it. 61,000 pounds of bred heifers in the trailer. He stuffed it into the hillside instead of comming down all the way backwards, across a bride and into the seed plant. Ironically, no heifers were hurt. Makes your butt pucker when you go inside the trailer and you can feel it shift/sway back and forth as heifers jump out the back.

 

[wickman]

I was heading up a logging road driving my company F-350 towing a 2 place open with my 700 RMK and a buddies tricked out Phaser. We were pulling a long steep hill with a vertical bluff on one side and a couple hundred foot dropp off on the other. About 2/3 of the way up I hit some ice under the snow. The next thing I know Ty and I are sliding backwards at about 20 MPH. We were going straight most of the way but when it started to wiggle I cut the wheels and put the trailer into the bluff. Luckily we stopped with very little damage other than the load in my shorts. A couple of weeks later someone else did the same thing and totaled his truck and messed up his sleds.

 

[beer gut]

Nothing happened but could have been nasty...

Driving from Denver to the Bighorns last year with my brother, I was driving my Cummins with a two place open. Beautiful sunny day, roads were completely dry, no blowing snow, so I set my cruise at about 77 mph. A few miles north of Cheyenne we crested a small rise and hit some black ice with the cruise on, started going a little sideways. I just tapped the brakes to disengage the cruise and got it straightened out. I never got too worried, but my brother said "HOLY SH!t" and looked a little nervous.

Needless to say, even though the roads stayed dry, we didn't use cruise control the rest of the way.

 

[StenneS]

This November I went out to Revy during the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend. I think it was Friday morning and I met up with a couple guys from the 4M and we decided to head to Boulder. It was around 9 am when we left the Chevron and started to make way. When we got to the first parking lot at Boulder we were already behind a few vehicles. I'm driving my lifted '03 Tacoma with a little utility trailer with just my sled loaded on it and the guys I met up with have a Duramax with a Rev in the box and a couple brand new
M8's on a two place. The stuff infront went as follows: first truck in the pack was some brand new Dodge with a exposed 4 place I think, then another truck with a deck and two place behind them and as I mentioned before .... us behind. So as we begin our way up it's dry as a bone and everyone is haulin' along but pretty close to eachother, not me though. So we make it to snow level and the turns are getting tight..... and tighter. I start to put a little more distance infront of me due to the last 5 years of Sh!tty winter driving in big trucks (bodyjob Freightliners, Internationals, Western Stars etc...) and good thing I did. We all make it to a pretty steep and tight switchback to the left and in kind of an organized way everyone makes it up without too much drama. Just after this switchback there was a little parking spot to the left with a hill afterwards..... everyone except me hits the hill at the same time.... not good. The Dodge at the front spins out before he could crest the hill and well let the domino effect begin. So he hits the brakes and starts to slide backwards with this four place loaded right up, noticing the train of vehicles behind he jackknifes the trailer putting it right into the side of the truck. The truck behind him has to try and reverse due to this Dodge coming at him so he jacknifes his unit into the ditch a bit...... the Duramax infront of me jacknifed his trailer and almost put it over the creek bed to the left. And well I just sat at the bottom of the hill shaking my head at all of this. Eventually everyone got straightened around and parked at the little parking lot to the left. The only damage was to the brand new Dodge Cummins... and a few bruised egos.