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

 

[rch75]

I remember once as a kid, my brother broke down in his car about 3-4 hours away and my dad and I went to go get him and the car. we were flat-towing it with straps (late 1970's) and the toll taker would not allow us on the NYS Thruway with that set up so we had to tow it home on the back roads through the Catskills of NY with my brother in the broken down car steering it...went from a 3-4 hour trip to 6-8 hour sojourn to get him home....man, was my dad pissed. But, no one pulled us over and we made it home. We had multiple straps and the car was something like 3 feet from dads custom rear bumper made out of 3/4" inch boiler plate steel on the back of his 1975 Ford F-250 highboy. No damage to bumper but the front of the Vega my brother owned took some light damage for sure.

Different time for sure and I would never attempt something like that today at all. Call a wrecker and let them handle it, or at the very least, get a tow dolly.

Okay, I have one more tow story.

It was a dark and very snowy Christmas Eve and we (4 of us and our dog) were headed through Algonquin Park to Petawawa for a family Christmas.

We came across an older model Chrysler mini-van in the ditch, middle of nowhere. It was full of Quebec'ers also headed somewhere for Christmas.

I pulled our F150 to the side, 4 way flashers, pulled out safety lights and reflective safety vests-can't be too careful, considering the conditions. A narrow winding slippery 2 lane through hills.

I got the tow rope hooked up (I gave one of the reflective vests and safety light to flag/warn other passing vehicles to another motorist, but everyone was stopping to help, which was nice).

Suddenly a park ranger pulls up, tells me I have to stop and wait for the police and a tow truck. I did the 5 second pause, blinked and said there isn't any damage, no accident, no injuries and we all just wanted to get safely headed to our Christmas destination. And I carefully pulled them out of the deep ditch with way too much snow in it.

I did have some traction grit and spread it so with my 1997 F150 rwd I could get enough purchase to get them out.

All good, no need to exchange cash for the help, just be careful on the slippery roads and an adios! I never did hear back that I was reported or anything so it all went as well as could be expected.

Just another example of you never know when you could come across someone in need of help.

I would have tried to help the elderly lady (as the OP did) as well, of course.

Andy

I edited which F150 I had at the time, as this one only was rwd, not 4 wheel drive.

Exactly how we should treat others! We rely on each other and the Christmas spirit, not the government!

 

[Cherokee]

 

[Tom 71 Maverick 24]

The officer ticked my Maverick as an “UNSAFE TOWING DEVICE”…

All cause I pulled up in front of a little old lady broke down in the middle lane of I-45 and towed her Cherokee off the highway into the Bucees parking lot.

AND SHE CALLED IT BABY BLUE!
AND SHE CALLED IT A HATCHBACK!

It’s hard enough holding onto my man card driving a mini truck without an officer belittling it.

I'll translate - the police chief's brother owns a towing company and you just costed him some revenue.

 

[Cherokee]

I'll translate - the police chief's brother owns a towing company and you just costed him some revenue.

Zactly.

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