Sorry for the length of this topic, but I wanted to describe the incident fully to give adequate background information.
I was following an outfit onto a dual carriageway with extremely light traffic on Friday and noticed the caravan was 'swinging' only very slightly from side to side. Speed was not more than 50mph. Once on the dual carriageway the road became slightly downhill and I overtook (solo), as did the car following, which also overtook me. On looking in my mirror when I was probably 200 yards ahead, I saw the caravan 'swinging' was now gradually increasing and over probably 30 seconds had become a significant snake, which was eventually recovered by the driver (just) after what seemed like a considerable duration of where the caravan was oscillating between the outside carriageway and the nearside verge. I do not believe the outfit exceeded 50mph, and it was probably lower, even on the dual carriageway.
Now, being of the helpful type, and having never seen this happen at such a low speed and with such little provocation before, I drove slowly in front and indicated to the driver to turn into the next layby, which he did.
The driver's initial reaction was "I got a bit of a wobble on there!" which I thought to be an understatement. I asked if he had checked the noseweight, and he seemed to not realise how important this was, and agreed I could unhitch to check it for him. Upon unhitching it was obvious the caravan was about balanced so the noseweight was virtually nil. He then said he had a 12V battery placed at the back of the van (the worst place) and proceeded to move this to the front.
On the face of it the car and van appeared to be a good match - smallish van / BMW 3 or 5 series saloon (but no stabiliser.)
I know the vast majority of people appreciate the importance of getting the noseweight right, but it did surprise me how easily this outfit snaked due mainly to insufficient noseweight. This in turn made me wonder if many of the overturned outfits one hears about may have had insufficient noseweight - after all it is difficult to check it after a caravan has been reduced to matchwood!
Enjoy your Hols,
Trevor M
I was following an outfit onto a dual carriageway with extremely light traffic on Friday and noticed the caravan was 'swinging' only very slightly from side to side. Speed was not more than 50mph. Once on the dual carriageway the road became slightly downhill and I overtook (solo), as did the car following, which also overtook me. On looking in my mirror when I was probably 200 yards ahead, I saw the caravan 'swinging' was now gradually increasing and over probably 30 seconds had become a significant snake, which was eventually recovered by the driver (just) after what seemed like a considerable duration of where the caravan was oscillating between the outside carriageway and the nearside verge. I do not believe the outfit exceeded 50mph, and it was probably lower, even on the dual carriageway.
Now, being of the helpful type, and having never seen this happen at such a low speed and with such little provocation before, I drove slowly in front and indicated to the driver to turn into the next layby, which he did.
The driver's initial reaction was "I got a bit of a wobble on there!" which I thought to be an understatement. I asked if he had checked the noseweight, and he seemed to not realise how important this was, and agreed I could unhitch to check it for him. Upon unhitching it was obvious the caravan was about balanced so the noseweight was virtually nil. He then said he had a 12V battery placed at the back of the van (the worst place) and proceeded to move this to the front.
On the face of it the car and van appeared to be a good match - smallish van / BMW 3 or 5 series saloon (but no stabiliser.)
I know the vast majority of people appreciate the importance of getting the noseweight right, but it did surprise me how easily this outfit snaked due mainly to insufficient noseweight. This in turn made me wonder if many of the overturned outfits one hears about may have had insufficient noseweight - after all it is difficult to check it after a caravan has been reduced to matchwood!
Enjoy your Hols,
Trevor M
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