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Old 04-03-2005, 10:41 AM   #8
hal
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I also feel that you should practice all the aspects of towing a trailer. It is easy to get moving forward at a hiway speed. Any idiot can do this. But from then on, there are things that are not so easy. For example backing into a space. Your other half will be giving you directions to turn right, only it is her right and not yours. Some times the driver and helper may be talking in strange tongues or using wildly flailing arms. One of our rewards for stopping early in the late afternoon is to watch the strategies of of other Rv owners. We have even picked up some words that we have never heard before. We think we know what the driver was saying because he was also using sign language when waving his arms and shouting. The helper needs to realize that if he/she cannot see the driver in the mirrors, then the driver cannot see the helper. Practice in a large parking lot when there is no traffic to make things too realistic. Use empty milk cartons to mark out boundaries. And by all means, practice, practice, practice on stopping. There is no more eerie feeling than to step on the brakes and have to rely on the ABS braking system. It will not bring your tv and trailer to a sudden stop. Or, if you were to hit a patch of gravel or ice while applying the brakes. The forward motion of all the weight of the tv and trailer combined, can give you the panicy feeing as if you had no brakes. Be especially careful when making a hair-pin turn and your trailer pushes you straight ahead because of a slippery spot in the road. Also after properly adjusting your brake controller, practice with it at that setting. Then do some practice with the "emergency" trailer brake control. Most of the brake controllers have a sliding control that should help you to use more of the trailer brakes to bring you to a stop. Don't forget to use it if you need to. Trailering is fun, but you should be prepared for anything, such as a car in the other lane that without warning switched to your lane and then immediately stops in front of you for a red traffic light. You hear the truckers talk of this all the time. Even with trailer brakes, and a good brake controller, you just don't have the ability to stop in the same short distance as you could without the trailer hooked on behind. I wish you safe braking.

Hal
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