Towing

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.

I have a trailer that is rated at 10,000 lbs. It is a pintle hook setup and we have two safety chains. What size is required? We would never be carrying anything over 4000 lbs on the trailer.

I have a McGregor sailboat on a trailer, and many years ago the brakes rusted out (salt water) and I had to have them taken out in order to move. The rest of the trailer is quite sound. I was informed by people in the industry that I could still tow the trailer as as the boat is quite light and my towing vehicle is quite heavy duty.

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. The latter three types of vehicle are easily identified by the colour of their flashing lights but the tow truck blends in with all the other flashing yellow light equipped vehicles on our highways.

I am working to determine the total weight, dry and loaded, of our new boat which will be arriving this spring.  Most of that data I am able to get from the manufacturer or dealership.  Unfortunately, our current SUV is not rated high enough to pull the new boat.  That in turn means we will eventually have to buy a new vehicle – I am researching several to determine their towing capacity.  For this sum

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.

QUESTION: I was given a 24 hour Driving Prohibition in Richmond. When I called the towing company after 24 hours to get their address I was told that there was a police hold on my vehicle. This so called hold carried on until I contacted the RCMP Officer who had issued me the 24 hour suspension.