Ticketed: UNSAFE TOWING DEVICE

[rch75]

Short " tow" story .
A large construction company I dealt with got a fully loaded cement mixer truck stuck in the mud .
An idiot coworker threw a tow chain around the front axle ....yup ....ripped the axle right out .
They couldn't let the cement harden in the drum so they had to dump it all out , right there , before attending to the cement truck .
Same company ...they had a job site pit to drive the water trucks down into for refilling the trucks with water . Over a weekend vandals broke in , drained the overhead water tank into the pit .
The workers came to work on Monday to find one of the water trucks floating in the pit , nose down ..

Okay , one more , the owner of the construction company was " one of a kind "
He wanted to show somebody how to properly drive the Caterpillar , smacked his head , no hard hat , knocked his out for a few seconds , during that time the Cat drove over his prized V12 BMW sedan that was parked at the jobsite ...

I liked that guy , he eventually died when his private plane he was flying iced up and went down over the Sierras ...

sounds like a heck of a guy. Living his best life

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[Mavster Mechanic]

Just saw a youtube video.

Two guys wanted to see what they could tow with a geared down, really geared down, human pedaled bicycle.
No electric assist or anything.
They put a class 3 tow hitch and ball on the bicycle and added a 7 pin connector and a brake controller on a bicycle mind you.

After a few iterations of breaking chains and once? a rear axle..

BY HUMAN PEDAL POWER they towed:

A 1300 lb. trailer 100 yards UPHILL on a progressively steeper slope of 6-7-8%.

Then ON LEVEL GROUND they towed
15,400 lbs with a pedal bike.

15,400 lbs was

Bike -full size pickup - flatbed trailer with mini excavator on the trailer. Man in pickup in neutral to man the brakes incase it got away from them.

They could pedal away from a dead stop with 15,400 lbs in tow for 14 feet then the chain broke.

1 human = 0.75 horsepower on average.

 

[MaverickDragon]

@Mavster Mechanic
The bike driver must have had a good set of quads...

Without the advantage of the low bike gearing, Rev. Kevin Fast in 2017 pulled a 218,389 lbs vehicle a distance of over 100 feet, which according to bot logic, remains the current record.

Not near that record, I once moved a 40,000 + pound water truck by myself, just by driving it.

 

[Ryom]

Just saw a youtube video.

Two guys wanted to see what they could tow with a geared down, really geared down, human pedaled bicycle.
No electric assist or anything.
They put a class 3 tow hitch and ball on the bicycle and added a 7 pin connector and a brake controller on a bicycle mind you.

After a few iterations of breaking chains and once? a rear axle..

BY HUMAN PEDAL POWER they towed:

A 1300 lb. trailer 100 yards UPHILL on a progressively steeper slope of 6-7-8%.

Then ON LEVEL GROUND they towed
15,400 lbs with a pedal bike.

15,400 lbs was

Bike -full size pickup - flatbed trailer with mini excavator on the trailer. Man in pickup in neutral to man the brakes incase it got away from them.

They could pedal away from a dead stop with 15,400 lbs in tow for 14 feet then the chain broke.

1 human = 0.75 horsepower on average.

 

[MakinDoForNow]

@Mavster Mechanic
The bike driver must have had a good set of quads...

Without the advantage of the low bike gearing, Rev. Kevin Fast in 2017 pulled a 218,389 lbs vehicle a distance of over 100 feet, which according to bot logic, remains the current record.

Not near that record, I once moved a 40,000 + pound water truck by myself, just by driving it.

Then there was the swimmer guy that towed many boats (one more each year?) !

 

[MaverickDragon]

Then there was the swimmer guy that towed many boats (one more each year?) !

That was Jack LaLanne.
He was famous for fitness.
On his 70th birthday, he towed 70 boats with a person on each boat for 1.5 miles, across California's Long Beach Harbor, while he was handcuffed and shackled.
What a guy!

 

[Mavster Mechanic]

While we're at it.

I've moved a 200,000 lb. railcar by hand with just a 6 foot pry-bar.

Mechanical advantage is a beautiful thing.

 

[Mavster Mechanic]

So don't ANYONE say you can't tow 5k with a 4k Maverick or you will be flamed to infinity and beyond. You sure can. And then some.

 

[MakinDoForNow]

While we're at it.

I've moved a 200,000 lb. railcar by hand with just a 6 foot pry-bar.

Mechanical advantage is a beautiful thing.

That reminded me of the time, about 1959-1960, when I was working at lumberyard going past wholesale supplier. Railroad had miss spotted a loaded boxcar. Someone had hooked a bobtail truck to boxcar and had it moving when I drove past. It wasn't moving hardly at all but when he stopped the truck the boxcar hit his truck and I swear it left the ground at least the first time. When the truck used up the 12-14 foot of slack in the chain it stopped immediately followed by being hit about five more times before boxcar stopped rolling. I was laughing so hard I had trouble watching!!!!! We had a rail car lever to move them manually at our yard, seems like it was only 5 feet but with the lever action a fully loaded car was easy peasy to move.

 

[Mavster Mechanic]

That reminded me of the time... ...we had a rail car lever to move them manually at our yard, seems like it was only 5 feet but with the lever action a fully loaded car was easy peasy to move.

That's it.

5 feet is fine.

One stout horse can pull about 3 railcars.
But he can't stop them.
Always need a person riding along with his hand on the brake wheel.

 

[dochawk]

1 human = 0.75 horsepower on average.

To be fair, the average horse is about 7 horsepower . . .

it was a made up marketing figure to sell steam engines.

I've moved a 200,000 lb. railcar by hand with just a 6 foot pry-bar.

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." --Archimedes

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