Another terrifying caravan rollover has once again got police urging grey nomads and all other travellers to make sure they follow basic safety routines when hitting the road.
The latest crash happened on Cygnet River Bridge, near Cranbrook in Tasmania at midday on Tuesday.
Police say their initial investigations suggest a car towing a caravan lost control causing the caravan to collide with a guard rail, detach from the vehicle and break apart on impact.
Thankfully no-one was injured in the crash.
In the wake of the accident, police are reminding motorists to check their vehicles before towing caravans, trailers, or boats, particularly during busy travel periods.
Police were able to return the stolen trailer to the owner. PIC: Aitoff / Pixabay
Key safety tips include:
• Ensuring the towing setup is suitable for your vehicle’s towing capacity.
• Distributing weight evenly inside the caravan or trailer to maintain stability.
• Checking brakes, lights, couplings, safety chains, and tyre pressures before setting off.
• Driving to the conditions.
• Allowing extra stopping distance, as towing requires more space to brake safely.
After directly affected motorists and the emergency services, the people most quickly in the scene of many road accidents are the towing companies that remove damaged vehicles,
The job offers these ‘towies’ a fairly unique insight into the cause of many of the crashes they see.
The team at Clayton’s Towing on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast has literally seen the aftermath of hundreds of caravan rollovers. A while back, general manager, Mike Clayton, told the Grey Nomads that the company had noticed a number of recurring themes.
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Yes, they might be good but one thing, they are overpriced to the max!!!
I load the van and before taking off on any trip check the tow ball weight and enter it in my van’s logbook.
You need a truck license to drive a truck over 4.5 ton. You can buy a V8 land cruiser and caravan that can gross nearly 7 ton and drive it on a pensioners license.
Funny. That doesn’t stop the numerous truck roll-overs and crashes that take place does it.
One reasonably recent trip East we came across 3 truck accidents involving single vehicles.
2 roll-overs and one into a tree killing the driver.
If a driver is competent and obeys the rules, has some common sense and loads their van correctly, they are as safe as any other driver on the road.
Caravan Licence would have been the most suitable wording. And before any more of your wisdom l do not tow a caravan nor a pensioner(yet). My choice RV. Did you notice my choice so maybe people (all ages)should have to do a course including written and practical. Please note there are all age groups towing and doing their own thing.
We had a faulty safety lock on our draw bar, when we drove over a speed hump, the caravan came off the vehicle.
Lucky that we were one block from home in our street, and some kind work men helped us putting the van back on the car.