Geometry
I used to be pretty good at it, but it's been awhile since. Hopefully I won't be getting any hard lessons in geometry from the TM. I saw the table in Mike & Kelly's TM users manual, and it was based on the assumption that the trailer was going to be 9 feet tall -- a whole different kettle of fish from a Trailmanor, but certainly it has a point to make.
Since my last post, I caught up with a friend who worked for years at one of the big auto companies, and I asked him about how they figure out and assign the manufacturer's recommended towing capacity. He told me that they really do test these things pretty carefully these days. It turns out that one of the more important aspects to them is basic durability, something I hadn't thought too much about in our safety conversations here. A non-trivial part of the discussion is about how many transmissions they'll have to replace under warranties, versus the number of people who will buy their product because of its rated trailering capacity. The lesson on this point is that you NEED a different kind of TV if you climb a mountain every time you tow, just as you might WANT a different kind of TV if you're going to drive it to work in the suburbs every day.
My point remains that no vehicle is automatically safe just because it's load is three hundred pounds less, and there's no rated load capacity that's going to solve your problems when you're driving too fast for conditions.
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