Q: We know why they do it.... but what legal authority do break down vehicles have to block (cone off) a whole lane on the highway one when the stall is on the shoulder?
Have you ever had your trailer start to play wag the dog while you are driving along the highway? Chances are good that this happened due to the way that you loaded your trailer. Too much weight on the rear of a trailer is a recipe for trouble. This video shows why.
Back in 2004 I put tongue in cheek and wrote about the trailer tug test. You hook the trailer up, drive off and look in the rear view mirror, if it’s still following you, carry on! I found myself behind a couple of vehicles pulling trailers yesterday and wondered if their drivers had missed the fact that I was being facetious. Neither trailer had any functioning lights and I can only guess what else might have been overlooked.
One of the more eye-opening exercises that I used to conduct at this time of the year was to park my police vehicle at the brake check and wave in vehicles pulling boat trailers for a mechanical inspection. I had learned that boat trailers were often the most poorly maintained of all recreational trailers and there were often serious safety defects to be found. A simple pre-trip inspection by the driver would have found them easily and made sure that the trip would be a safe one.
A reader reports that she was driving to Nanaimo and somewhere around Cook Creek there was a black vehicle with several flashing lights stationary at the side of the road. The road was not particularly busy and she was in the curbside lane. As she approached, traveling at the posted 110 kph. She gradually reduced her speed, checked her mirrors and moved into the outer lane so that she was traveling at 70 kph before she drew alongside the vehicle. As seh passed this vehicle she could see police officer walking in front of the vehicle, taking photographs into the ditch.
The tow truck is a bit of an orphan when it comes to being an "official vehicle" as defined in our slow down, move over laws. Drivers happening across a tow truck working at the side of the highway must slow down and move over if possible just as they would for an overtaken police vehicle, fire apparatus or ambulance.
This is an interesting 5 minute video explaining how to connect your tow vehicle to your RV using an equalizer hitch. The only addition that I would make to it would be to cross the safety chains under the tongue of the trailer so that if the hitch fails the tongue falls onto the crossed chains instead of digging into the roadway and causing more mayhem!
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure's Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE) branch as issued a publication titled "Your Guide to Livestock Hauling, An Overview of Trailer Licensing and Insurance." In addition to a discussion of licensing and insurance, the publication also provides information on how the National Safety Code applies to farm vehicle operations and whether or not a farm vehicle must report to weigh scales.
I was given a 24 hour Driving Prohibition in Richmond BC in December 2009. When I called the tow company after 24 hours to get their address, I was told that there was a police hold on the Vehicle. This so called hold carried on until I contacted the RCMP Officer who had issued me the 24 Hr Suspension.
Tow trucks are too expensive! I've got a chain and a buddy to do the steering and brakes, so we'll just drag that broken down vehicle home and fix it ourselves. Think of the money we'll save doing it this way.
Q: We know why they do it.... but what legal authority do break down vehicles have to block (cone off) a whole lane on the highway one when the stall is on the shoulder?
Tow trucks are too expensive! I've got a chain and a buddy to do the steering and brakes, so we'll just drag that broken down vehicle home and fix it ourselves. Think of the money we'll save doing it this way.