Not a good day for a few caravanners

[RickStevens]

I had to drive from Doncaster to Sheffield at work today, a total of 19 miles.

In that time I saw:

One poor soul lose the offside wheel of his caravan just coming off the M18 onto the A6182 (The wheel nearly hit me on the opposite side of the road)
Another poor soul lost one of his rooflights on the M18 travelling North
1 lunatic driving down the outside lane of the M1 like a madman
1 badly loaded van doing around 50mph on the inside of the M1 and wagging like a dogs tail.

All that in just over 20 mins of travelling!!

 

[ValA.]

There were also lots of mentions of caravans in accidents, or overturned, on the Traffic News, all over the holiday weekend.

 

[Steve L]

Hi Rick.
Sound's like you've got them all up in Yorkshire.
By that I mean, those who won't follow Pc's loading guide and also those who haven't bothered to get their vans serviced.
Lucky for you that the wheel didn't hit you head on. I've seen the damage a lorry wheel can do when the studs fail. The Volvo estate that it bounced over the central reservation of the M6 and hit, looked like an elephant had sat on the roof. The driver sadly didn't survive and the front seat passenger was seriously injured. Fortunately the lorry driver stopped and called the accident in.

I had a cement lorry deposit part of it's 3 cubic metre overload onto my car at a combined speed of about 80Mph. It smashed the windscreen and did £1500 of paint and panel damage to my car. I had to chase the driver nearly to the gravel pit where he'd picked up 10 instead of 7 cubic metres of concrete. All the way through the insurance claim they try'd to get out of a claim. But fortunately I had evidence (cemet on the car,photo of the cement spattered on the road at the sceene, plus a copy of the weighbridge ticket and a photo of lorry and driver). But not many people would of thought to do that at the time especially if name of driver and company address had been supplied. As was the case with my incident.

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

Hi Rick.
Sound's like you've got them all up in Yorkshire.

Well you got that right Steve. The fri/sun rush to the coast is horrendous allthough most of the loonies just seem to be passing through on their way to somewhere else.

 

[ValA.]

I wonder if the bouncing wheel was one that came off the new Bailey Unicorns? Apparently Bailey have recalled this range because of problems with 'wheel detachment'!

 

[RickStevens]

Hi Val

It definately wasnt a Bailey, I think it was an Eldiss Odyssey

 

[papafulton]

Interested to read of the van losing his skylight. I travelled on the A64 from York to Malton a couple of weeks ago and in the space of 10 minutes met 3 vans coming from the Scarborough direction with their large wide open. Could be a costly mistake by forgetting to check they are secure before leaving. Maybe with our normal weather they are not in the habit of having them open.

 

[Steve L]

William.
I think the problem is that folks when on site, leave the catches off expecting the gravitational weight of the large skylight to keep it closed and then forget to check before towing.
We have two such skylights on our van and an omni vent and a conventional skylight in the loo. The conventional shylights have plastic welded rivets to attatch the handle mechanisum. These fail periodically hence why these fly off. I caught mine in time when just one side had failed and refitted it with proper screws and washers.

Folks realy do need to check skylights everytime they travel. When these fly off they could in the worst case cause a motorcyclist to crash at speed and that could be fatal.

 

[Heethers]

Had the van serviced 2 weeks ago first time l have had the note attached to the service sheet stating to torque your wheel nuts after 50 miles after the service and again before you do a long run. Did mine when l arrived home torqued the wheel nuts all fine and always do them before we start any journey. Still bothers me that caravan wheels parting at an alarming rate, surely the industry must be worried at amount of accidents due to wheels parting can't all be due to the owners not checking. Anyone had a wheel come off even though they did a torque check before they left.
NigelH