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Trailer (caravan) - accident




This is, in fact, something which has happened to me as well, the rear fin of the Mercedes met up with the 5,5 meter long caravan. Fortunately it was not loaded at the time but completely empty. There were two of us in the car, and while taveling slowly on the, at that time still two-lane motorway, the caravan started to shunt.

I can assure you, we weren't travelling too fast. There was no time to check the speedometer, but it was probably even less than 80 km/h. I had just about no experience with caravans and the Mercedes had a pretty long boot, which produced a very large leverage.

To cut a long story short, the whole set-up started to sway and I was counter steering. All we could hope for was that we would slow down. An 'experienced' caravaner once gave me the tip, to accelerate the moment the vehicles line up. This would have a stabilizing effect. Not a chance, because the towing vehicle was a Diesel and the effect was non-existent.

Fortunately, the other person in the car stayed calm, indeed, for me, the wrenching of the steering wheel became more and more intense. In the meantime our lane (the right hand lane) was no longer enough, I was now using the hard-shoulder and sometimes also even the overtaking lane! I found out afterwards, that sensible drivers coming up from behind, had virtually blocked the motorway and were calmly watching me battle it out.

In short, in the end there was a contact between the rear bumper and the corner of the caravan, a fight which the Mercedes lost on points. Nonetheless, at least we did not end up on the separation barrier, or even on the other side. We were able to lever the bumber out again using a crowbar, so that we could carry on driving (even more slowly).

To be quite honest, I don't know what else I could have done. Hit the brakes when the two vehicles were pretty much in line? What about the following traffic? I rather think that one should pay attention to the weight of the towing vehicle and to the weight of the vehicle being towed, and also to have as little leverage as possible on the coupling (gooseneck).

Don't ever think 'that can't happen to me', things like that don't happen any more. Right now, I'm reading an article about exactly the same thing in the newspaper. Certainly, in this day and age, where 100 km/h is permitted, there are oscillation dampers between the car and the caravan, and the handling characteristics of the above shown model were definitely not the best. However, caravans e.g., are increasingly being overloaded and their tyres are quite frequently too old … 01/12





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