safety chains and the laws
 

My cousin and family were nearly killed back in the 60s when a packed uhaul trailer came loose and crossed into his path. Head on impact.
I have always had safety chains on my trailers and never gave it much thought past it's good insurance.
Until recently.
I've been watching off road recoveries from out in Utah on utubes. I have seen Matt have his trailer come loose from his jeep twice now and no sign of safety chains. The 2nd time his trailer rolled down off the rocks and slammed into a big one just missing a new sxs at night time and people around. That could have been real bad. I got to looking for them in his other videos and have not seen them in use at all and I wonder is it not law in all states to use safety chains? Law or not, they can be a life saver.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

I have two safety chains on my trailer, and a safety trip wire that locks the trailer's brakes in case of a breakaway. I hope I never find out what happens if my trailer were to break loose.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

By state - https://www.rvia.org/system/files/me...equirement.pdf
https://drivinglaws.aaa.com/tag/trailer-hitch-signals/

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U-Haul is supposed to cross the safety chains under the tongue so it can't hit the ground. That's how I do it with my own if the chain(s) allow for it. Probably the renter unhooked and then re-hooked the trailer without the chains.

When I hauled our MH from KS to CO it didn't have any safety chain, so I took one of my log chains and looped it around and through the A-frame and then hooked the two ends to the truck frame. Moving it five miles up and down the road spring and fall, I'm sure I didn't bother. ;)

Only once ever had a trailer come loose. It was a pintle hitch and that truck (not my GMC) just had two big plates with matching holes and a long pin that just dropped in. Running empty the pin bounced out and first thing I knew the trailer was swinging crazy just on the chains. I stopped and walked back and found the pin. After I gave that POS truck back and got my big GMC, I put a real latching pintle hitch on it but I still always hooked up the safety chains.

Ball couplers really aren't that strong. They're designed just to keep the tongue from bouncing off the ball and mostly depend on hitch weight. One time I got the bright idea to use a ball and coupler for a hinge for a crane boom, and blew it out the first load that I put on it! I had to weld up a u-joint hinge from scratch instead.

Matt is a great guy and I've learned a lot from his recovery videos, but lately I'm thinking that his "whatever works is okay" approach is going to cause major damage or injury someday. I've done a lot of things that worked once but I wouldn't try it like that again. I know he doesn't want to haul extra weight and doesn't want to sweat out in that heat, but most of those stranded vehicles I could get out with a hi-lift jack and a shovel. The jack would come in handy for getting those broken Razors on the trailer or at least getting them straight.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

I pull a 18' trailer a lot with my golf carts back and forth to the beach which is a 5 hr ride each way so I have safety chains and the brake release hooked up all the time.
From what my insurance said about the trailer is if I don't have them in use and they prove I don't use them then my insurance will not pay if it comes loose and hits somebody are damages property. I use them just like my seat belts.:chevy:

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

A neighbor friend of mine hooked up to his ski boat to take a couple of blocks over to a guy to work on it for him and since it was just around the corner so to speak he didn't bother with the chains and guess what. The boat and trailer bounced up and the coupler rammed into the deck lid of his 65 GTO.

Places like uhaul all probably make sure rentals are hooked up proper at the time they are picked up but what a renter does after that is on them.

What happened to my cousin and family is the guy coming the other way did not use the chains and the trailer came loose and came across the center line into my cousins lane and hit them head on. Apparently it wasn't coupled properly either. There was no time to react. I don't fear a trailer coming loose and slowing down in front of me, it's the one in the other lane that could come across at me suddenly.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

I was thinking crossed chains was a law here in Ala...
But looking at Rods charts chain arnt even required..
I've pulled trailers 1000s of miles and only had one come unhooked.. it was a boat trailer that my buddy hooked to my 72 blazer...the trailer had a 2in hitch and he hooked it on my 1-7/8 ball...ain't nothing like looking at a trailer tounge in your back glass at 55mph..

I've also noticed noticed Matt's lack of chains...now that yall have me hooked on his videos from another post on here, I've been watching his vids...

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Boat/trailer must have been tail heavy (outboard motor?) or the tongue would have hit the pavement instead.

U-Haul hitches don't latch down; they have a screw tightener that has to be adjusted properly.

People that pull trailers all the time aren't usually the problem; the ones that do it once it a great while often don't know what they are doing.


BTW, always check the tire pressure and lug nuts if you rent a U-Haul trailer. Don't believe them when they say everything has been checked and it is fine. Also, every time I stop, I walk all the way around and visually inspect hitch and trailer, and I feel the hubs to make sure a bearing isn't getting hot (rental trailer or my own).

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I don't care about the law. I always run chains on my trailers. End of story.

I would never want to be the guy that harmed someone because I was too lazy to properly hook up my stuff.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Here is an interesting article on this subject.

https://mechanicalelements.com/trailer-safety-chains/

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

The only trailer that ever moved behind one of my trucks w/o chains never left my driveway. But I'm not sure if I've even done that. I don't need a law to force me to be smart. Why on earth would anyone haul a trailer w/o safety chains? Especially a towing and recovery guy??? That's just plain ignorant.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Exactly.

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In answer to the question, yes, it is the law here in Utah. And it's just plain stupid to operate without them.

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My mobile home did not come with safety chains. I'm not sure that any of them do. I don't know what the professional movers use; I suppose they have their own chains on the toter truck that they use.

As I said before, I rigged up one of my log chains when I moved it long distance. After that until we sold it, the only place it went was back and forth just a few miles on a gravel road between our summer and winter parking place for a couple years. I sure don't remember messing with a chain for that little bit. Probably didn't go over 20-25 mph and don't know if we ever even met another vehicle since it was off season. Fifty foot trailer with probably 1500 pounds of hitch weight, wasn't going to bounce off. Sometimes we moved it with smoke still coming out of the wood stove chimney :lol:

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

That was an interesting article. I always use safety chains, but it's the law here.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Ma knitting in the rocker, too? :lol: I edited my post you quoted. I left out "w/o chains" and added that back in. Every, and I mean ev-er-y time I have hitched to a trailer I have slipped the safety pin in. Even the smallest empty trailer and all I did was pull forward and back into the spot right next to where it was. I do all I can to assure a trailer only comes loose when I take it loose. Anything else is never a good situation... unless you need material to post in the "Have you ever done something dumb" thread :lol:

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

No, but the cat rode in the trailer. It was funny when we let her out. She kept looking all around and then looking back at the trailer: different place, same trailer, different place ???

As far as "something dumb" with trailers, that would be more along the lines of too heavy a trailer and too light of a pickup. That's why anymore I am a "never can have too much truck" sort of guy ;)

The trick to having lots of stories to tell is surviving those stories when they happen. Otherwise I guess you're part of someone else's story ...

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Years ago, a bunch of us were going to lunch and were on the south bound part of I44 where it meets I40. A lane of traffic joins on both sides of the south bound highway. A single axle trailer crossed all four lanes and slammed into the bridge railing about fifty feet in front of us. It was still grinding to a stop as we passed. No clue which was the tow vehicle or if they even realized their trailer was missing. Sheer luck that it didn't cause a multi vehicle pile up.

Things like that make you a believer in chains and lock pins on the latch levers.

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Heard a story about a guy pulled over one night by the state patrol:

The trooper informed him that his tail lights were out.

"Oh no!" the driver exclaims and jumps out and runs to the back of his car. "Oh my god, oh no," he cries.

"Calm down, sir," the trooper says. "I'm just telling you so that you can get them fixed. I'm not going to give you a ticket."

"But my boat! My trailer !!!!!"

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Thinking back didn't U Hual have there own ball size ? like 2 1/8

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

No, they're stuff is 2". They did teach us to twist the safety chains to adjust the length.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Yeah, you used to have to rent (or buy) a ball from them. Plus if you already had trailer wiring you had to buy an adapter or else let them start chopping into your wires to put in their own little dangly plugs for each separate wire. I still have the adapter that I bought years ago but they don't use it anymore.

We rented a 6x12 in July 2020 and all that has changed. Two inch ball was fine; they said their coupler would crank down on any size (Huh?!). They had a flat-four plug to go right into my factory Silverado trailer wiring. There was a trailer system fuse out for my right signal/brake in my pickup and they traced that out and came up with a working fuse at no extra cost (this was the first time I towed something with my 2016 pickup so I guess I should have checked it out first!).

I checked the trailer tires' pressure right there when they were hooking it up even though they said it was fine (this time they were correct). After I got it back to my mom's house, I checked the lug nuts and at least one wheel was not tight at all! They don't have hubcaps anymore; back years ago with my mom we pulled into a gas station with a 5x8 U-Haul and there were two or three lug nuts rolling around in the hubcap!

I never unhitched/hitched the trailer not because I couldn't but we were on a schedule and I didn't have time to muck around with anything else. Four days only allowed to load, drive 700 miles, and unload, and then drive to a town to return the trailer. It was packed solid front to back and we had to integrate all this stuff into our household.

So overall U-Haul is better than it used to be. They require you to have an adequate hitch now, instead of renting out those stupid hitches that clamped on the car bumper! They kept asking me what my hitch was rated for and I said it's a factory hitch and the pickup is rated to tow 14.5K :lol:

Beware they require you to provide the phone number of a relative/friend who they call and must answer the phone Right Now or else they won't let you leave with the trailer or truck. And they don't tell you that when you reserve the trailer :devil:

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Just another thought:

Are safety chains required on pintle hitches ???

I had chains on my army/log trailer and used them, but I don't know about Class 8 "pup" trailers for instance. I do know a truck lost a trailer into a coulee off the highway near us a few years ago.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

That may be a local franchise rule. I've never had that happen. What I have had happen is that I have a confirmed reservation and then get bounced around from one location to another to another to actually find the trailer that was reserved at the first location.

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Or maybe a new thing? This was a few months ago. Have you rented a U-Haul this year?

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Yes class 8 requires chains or cables

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

ca vehicle code only requires a safety chain( )

except vehicle tow dolly requires safety chain(s)

although most do have two chains anyway

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I learned about crossing the chains here. I didn't get any info about that when I bought my travel trailer. They do drag on sharp turns, but there has been maybe a hundred yards of that, cumulative. I haven't towed it very much.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Yes,,this is a good read Boog ..covers every thing I have either heard or learned myself about trailer hook ups ..

I just learned recently why there is the 3 red lights at the top of my travel trailer at the rear .I was going to just delete the one light in the middle and make it my camera spot to use along with the hot and ground wire already there..

Well.. I was told that the 3 lights signify that this trailer is 8 foot wide to any one coming up behind me ..it is a law for any truck or trailer 8 foot wide to have all these 3 red lights on the rear

I did use the power form the center red light for my camera ,,but I installed the camera on top of my travel trailer therefore both can work off the same power ..

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Interesting topic and good reads posted. My trailer has safety chains and I was taught from a young age to cross them under the tongue so I always have. I also have a pin or long hasp lock through the catch as well because I have seen some bounce loose on a rough road.

I've never been faced with an oncoming, loose trailer but it has happened to my wife twice on hwy 167 here in Arkansas. First time the trailer stopped in the median and didn't cross all the way over the second time it thankfully happened where there was a retaining wall between lanes.

If you look at a typical ball/hitch setup there just isn't a lot there holding it all together and I tend to try to think about what will happen not during "normal" use but if I should hit a rough patch or possibly even have to swerve off the hard road for a second.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Yup, under the right conditions they can pop off. One street has since been smoothed, but it used to be a real washboard. 45 MPH speed limit, but everyone (almost) slowed to 30, max. Many years ago a trailer came off the hitch and struck a power pole in front of the local Chevy dealer, and caught fire. Fortunately the FD was on it pretty quickly and only the pole was scorched.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Just remembered my daughter said there was a spot somewhere near Prescott AZ where you go over the cattle guard and your trailer pops off. After her horse trailer came loose, the guy out there where she was going says "yeah, that happens to everybody with a trailer going over that cattle guard" :rolleyes:

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

:lol: And I'll bet that there is NO requirement to make it safer for trailers, just like railroad crossings aren't required to be pretty. Some of those crossings have the asphalt all bunched up, I GUESS from semis coming up to them and stopping fast, pushing the asphalt up. Maybe I'm wrong, could asphalt move that much? I do know that I've dug some nice grooves in new asphalt with my '69 Camaro. My dad wasn't all that happy, as the grooves were right in front of his house. :D

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Were trailers that jumped off the ball latched properly, lock pin, and proper sized ball? I can't imagine a trailer coming uncoupled that is properly coupled. It sure hasn't happened to me and I have put that situation to some extreme tests. I take my utility trailer back trails into the woods and even across creeks, loaded with firewood, twisting and turning all the extreme angles. Trailer just follows along. I always check when I get on the flat road. Always good.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

That's the way I see it too,,if the trailer hitch is latched down correctly and pinned ,,something has to break to come up off the ball ..

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Well, speaking of safety chains ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RyEdC0lNnw

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

As far as a properly latched ball and socket coupler goes even they can come loose. There is an adjustment on at least some of the couplers, maybe all, to tighten them up. There is a nut on the bottom side of the socket to close or open up the jaws on some of them. We all know using the wrong ball and coupler can lead to separation such as a 1 7/8" ball in a 2" coupler. It will hold for a while but can pop off at any time. The same can happen using the correct size ball in a loose coupler. Matt's events look like worn or loose couplers. The first one I saw he had a side by side hanging off the rear of his trailer as he moved his Jeep to get a better angle then with the weight being mostly on the rear of the trailer it just easily lifted off the ball and that was in the sand. The second one Matt was pulling the empty trailer up the rocks when the trailer just popped loose and rolled down hill and slammed into a rock. Working his rigs in all that sand I imagine he has wear on the ball and or socket and just needs to tighten it up some. As mentioned being a towing company operator he should know the dangers of NOT using safety chains and I cannot think of any good reason not to. Anyone?

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

Yeah actually he drove off a ledge and the tongue hit the ground and the entire rear end of the jeep was hanging off the ball coupler!

Once a coupler is pulled off the ball then it's going to be more likely to happen again.

Fun videos and he has a knack for pulling vehicles out of the sand, snow, and mud, but I'm getting more perplexed about some of the things that he does. The last one he dragged Lizzie and Randy ten miles across the desert in a junk car with no tires, windshield, or doors! A "carnival ride" that could have ended very badly.

I don't know why he doesn't rig up some sort of contraption off the hitch receiver that he could use to hold up one end of a side by side or small car like a wrecker ??? When our VW bug steering broke one night a couple miles from home, I went back the next morning with my log truck (without the trailer) and a hi lift jack and jacked up the car and just chained it to my pintle hitch.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

It's easy to see the weight of the Jeep hanging by that ball making it pop out but the point of this thread is actually safety chains which he doesn't use and would have prevented that trailer from rolling off down hill possibly hurting that kid or the adult that was back there in the area when it came crashing down. ;)
And yes, that deal he showed today was real dangerous. I hate to see some of the things he has Lizzy do. Those car doors hitting rocks and slamming shut while they were buzzing along could have hurt Lizzy or Randy and all the sand and that amount of dust in their faces makes it near impossible to see. She couldn't do much steering but I could just see that little turd box rolling hard around one of those turns. "howdy howdy, we got rowdy tday" she says.
Then there was the Excursion precariously parked at a severe angle and he put her in there while they pulled on it. I think they said it was about a 400' drop? Sure she is the smallest, lightest body there but ... and sweet Lizzy is willing to do whatever Matt tells her to do. Ol Dad shakin my head.

Re: safety chains and the laws
 

I was taught to cross chains when I learned to hitch a trailer. But it was much later I was shown to hook the chains facing backwards. In other words, don't just drop the hook into the hole. You go under the hole and hook up into the hole with the open part of the hook facing rearward. Way less likely for the chain to hop out of the hole. Rare chance, but everything that reduces odds helps