Accelerate or not

KevinJ · Senior Member

Accelerate or not

Collo · Senior Member

Most caravans, if not all are equipped with electric brakes. There should be a controller inside the vehicle.

In the event of sway...press the controller button. This will activate the caravan brakes independant of the tow vehicle. This will pull the caravan back straight.

No need to accelerate or definitely dont de accelerate.

Collo.

Wanda · Guru

Although its easy to say sitting back in our arm chairs, you should never brake, accelerate yes, if you have the power.
Obviously hit your break controller emergency stop for best results, says I sitting back enjoying a glass of red biggrin
Simples

Ian

Ivan 01 · Guru

Once the tail has wagged for the third time it is generally going to end in disaster.

I have had two vehicles fitted with electric brake controllers and both of those had a button that you could press that would apply the van brakes.

The guy that said he accelerated must have read that on a caravan forum.

Many drivers have not had the experience to realise that they potentially have a big problem as the tail wags for the first movement.
A vehicle towing a pig trailer needs a lot of respect as they are a very dangerous combination in the wrong hands, in the hands of the inexperienced and worse if they are in the hands of someone who overloads them or even if the weight is not evenly and correctly distributed.

I know many dont agree but I believe that correct training could be achieved for all if our respective governments introduce a licence to operate a car and a caravan as a step up from a car licence.

Those who arent confident with an articulated car and caravan should seriously consider a motor home.

KevinJ · Senior Member

Does ESC on the caravan make a difference to any decision?

Ivan 01 · Guru

KevinJ wrote:
Does ESC on the caravan make a difference to any decision?

If working as it should you may not have to make a decision.

Units like this are very good https://teambmpro.com/products/electronic-sway-control/

There are other forms of sway control which may be cumbersome in some cases.

Nothing fixes a bad driver or an overweight vehicle.

Aus-Kiwi · Guru

Ive light braked . Towing a car trailer not balanced correctly ! But NEVER brake that hard to loose traction ! I find best to keep straight and let the thing sort it self out ! Zig - Zaging, accelerating could exaggerate the problem. Depending on how brakes are set up . A light touch on brakes sets the trailers brakes on . Pulling things into line . But once found the boundary I keep
Under the speed so it doesnt happen ! Or shift the load !

Hylife · Guru

ever so lightly touching the brake pedal should activate the electric brakes without applying any braking to the tow vehicle, or

just take your foot off the accelerator and immediately hit the manual brake button on your brake controller, they ALL have them (required by law).

-- Edited by Hylife on Thursday 16th of June 2022 09:11:25 PM

yobarr · Guru

Collo wrote:
Most caravans, if not all are equipped with electric brakes. There should be a controller inside the vehicle.
In the event of sway...press the controller button. This will activate the caravan brakes independant of the tow vehicle. This will pull the caravan back straight.
No need to accelerate or definitely dont de accelerate.
Collo.

Great advice Shane. NEVER accelerate. NEVER. All that will do is exacerbate the situation. Anybody who doesn't understand that knows little of physics or dynamics, and would do well to do some research before setting sail. As Shane says, press the brake-control button, steer straight ahead and the van will quickly come back into line. You may well get away with light braking once the van settles,but NEVER accelerate. Don't try to "chase" the swaying van with your steering wheel. Just keep the steering wheel, and car, pointing straight ahead. Cheers

-- Edited by yobarr on Thursday 16th of June 2022 09:22:52 PM

Cupie · Guru

My only & very scaring experience with trailer sway was way back in about 1976 when I was using my Valiant sedan to tow a box trailer filled with old sleepers. No trailer breaks or safety chains either. Registered ?

Free sleepers, mossy Iron stone rocks & couch grass dug from creek banks ... along with sand & gravel from old bush creeks were my landscaping medium of choice.

The rusty old 6x4 trailer was certainly overloaded with long sleepers overhanging the back of the thing. The axel had a whopping bend in it from my overloading too.

I was heading home, coming down a slight downward sweep of the country road when the trailer started to swing about like a pendulum pulling the Valiant all over the place. I was going pretty slow at the time.

Fortunately I just let it take me onto the soft grassy verge where it thankfully came to a stop.

I think that I just froze and didn't accelerate, break, or try to correct the swing.

Just got out, had a nervous pee & opened another stubby.

Bullet proof in those days .. Just another lucky escape from the consequences of gross stupidity I suppose.

86GTS · Guru

The accelerate to straighten it up if your trailer sways BS has been around for years.
My father-in-law used to tow supply trailers in army convoys from Adelaide to Darwin during WW2, he used to say accelerate if it sways & it'll straighten it up.
Use your brake controller override button.

Saaby · Member

The assumption that most if not all caravans have electric brakes is incorrect. European light weight vans such as Adria, have over ride-brakes with no manual over ride. Australian legislation allows for caravans below a certain weight to use over-ride brakes. Adria also have a Al-KO "braked" coupling system. The only way I see addressing swaying is to back off on the accelerator without braking to at least apply light braking to the 'van wheels.

deverall11 · Guru

86GTS wrote:
The accelerate to straighten it up if your trailer sways BS has been around for years.
My father-in-law used to tow supply trailers in army convoys from Adelaide to Darwin during WW2, he used to say accelerate if it sways & it'll straighten it up.
Use your brake controller override button.

Yes correct. Accelerating may work on a 6x4 trailer but not a 2t+ caravan. Whilst it is easy to comment here, when faced with the situation it is different.

You can take steps to mentally prepare for it and it becomes a natural reaction. Applying the brakes via the controller ONLY will get he whole show straightened up.

It's physics. The thing that is 'dangling' is the caravan. Apply brakes to it and nothing else will fix. I have hear road train truck drivers have

the ability to apply brakes to each trailer individually. Guess this is how they deal with sway.

woolman · Guru

I am not sure if different brake controlers act differently but my experience in getting hit with a wlly willy that sent into big sway. I hit car brakes hard and released. This fully activated van brakes and iam still here so worked in my case. Don't now know make of brake controller but that was in instructions on how to activate van brakes. The other way was manual over ride.

Maybe read all the brake controller instructions before setting out first time, some times instructions are useful.

This is my experience not recomendation, except read intructions.

Neil

kgarnett · Senior Member

Lots of information here:

https://www.exploroz.com/Vehicle/Caravans/Caravan_Dynamics.aspx

Ken

Jaahn · Guru

HI my two cents worth.
The most common situation IMHO is to be climbing a hill with your foot down, and then when you go over the crest the speed picks up and you are going down hill. This is the most dangerous combination as doing nothing will allow the speed to increase.
I have always lightly braked to set the van brakes on a bit with over-ride brakes. Use the electric brakes if you have them. Braking the van will pull it out of the sway.
The only time accelerating will work is if you have gone through a dip and picked up a bit of speed and sway starts, but you are then going up hill again, and the power will pull the sway out.
If you cannot work out the difference between those scenarious then hand back your licence or buy a motor home.
Jaahn

Clarky 1 · Senior Member

It would be a good bet that many towing vans have little to no knowledge of the electric brake controller, how to set it for safety in braking and how to use it in an emergency.

Would the incident in the first post even happened if that driver was taught the correct way to deal with his situation by correct instruction and not being reliant on what he heard around the esky at happy hour.

If towing and you dont know, admit it and go get proper instruction.

The Belmont Bear · Guru

I have the Redarc Tow Pro and after reading the comments below I did a search and found the Redarc Utube video on how it works and how to use it correctly. Even though I have been using one for 5 years I actually learnt something and realise that there are situations where I could have been using it more effectivelty to control trailer braking. In my opinion the video is worth watching especially if you arent that famililar with how these brake controllers work or how to set them properly.

Regardless I had Trailer sway control on my Jeep, Dexter anti sway on our Retreat van with the Redarc electric braking system set on Auto..the van was well under its maximum loading with the weight distributed evenly. We were happily cruising along at 95kph (15km under the limit) when one side of the rear tandem axle lost the U bolts that secured it to the suspension. I'm not sure how much those features helped bring the rig safely to a stop without it rolling lover or detaching. Watching the van jumping around wildly in the revision mirror was a frightening experience - my wifes fingernails are probably still embedded in the dash I neither accelerated nor braked heavily I braked lightly and let the rig come to a stop on the verge.

Follow up for those interested is that we sat on the side of the highway just north of Raymond Terrace for 4 hrs while NRMA roadservice organised a tray back towtruck to travel 140kms from Taree to pick up the van and take it to a repairer in Hetherbrae at zero cost. Bad news is that we had to pay $8K to fix the damage ourselves as NRMA insurance refused to cover it as they said that they dont cover damage that is the result of a mechanical failure.

BB.

-- Edited by The Belmont Bear on Friday 17th of June 2022 12:11:14 PM

deverall11 · Guru

Clarky 1 wrote:
It would be a good bet that many towing vans have little to no knowledge of the electric brake controller, how to set it for safety in braking and how to use it in an emergency.

Would the incident in the first post even happened if that driver was taught the correct way to deal with his situation by correct instruction and not being reliant on what he heard around the esky at happy hour.

If towing and you dont know, admit it and go get proper instruction.

Yes correct. On the last part of your comment, the problem is recognising that 'You Don't Know'. And this holds

true on many subjects and many situations. Some are too proud or ignorant to admit they don't know it.

yobarr · Guru

Jaahn wrote:
HI my two cents worth.
The most common situation IMHO is to be climbing a hill with your foot down, and then when you go over the crest the speed picks up and you are going down hill. This is the most dangerous combination as doing nothing will allow the speed to increase.
I have always lightly braked to set the van brakes on a bit with over-ride brakes. Use the electric brakes if you have them. Braking the van will pull it out of the sway.
The only time accelerating will work is if you have gone through a dip and picked up a bit of speed and sway starts, but you are then going up hill again, and the power will pull the sway out.
If you cannot work out the difference between those scenarios then hand back your licence or buy a motor home.
Jaahn

Gee Jaahn, that's a bit harsh isn't it? Think of all the cheap caravans that would abound because there weren't enough capable drivers to tow them. Cheers

yobarr · Guru

86GTS wrote:
The accelerate to straighten it up if your trailer sways BS has been around for years.
My father-in-law used to tow supply trailers in army convoys from Adelaide to Darwin during WW2, he used to say accelerate if it sways & it'll straighten it up.
Use your brake controller override button.

BUT were the Army trailers PIG trailers? Totally different dynamics which is why almost all heavy trailers in Australia are DOG trailers. On bitumen the last trailer moves around a bit, but on dirt the rear of the 3rd trailer on my Roadtrain sometimes sways a metre each way. No big deal. Just keep going! Cheers

P.S Not disagreeing with your advice, which is good, but pointing out that the two most common trailer types, other than semitrailers, handle completely differently.

-- Edited by yobarr on Friday 17th of June 2022 03:20:22 PM

yobarr · Guru

Saaby wrote:
The assumption that MOST if not all caravans have electric brakes is incorrect. European light weight vans such as Adria, have over ride-brakes with no manual over ride. Australian legislation allows for caravans below a certain weight to use over-ride brakes. Adria also have a Al-KO "braked" coupling system. The only way I see addressing swaying is to back off on the accelerator without braking to at least apply light braking to the 'van wheels.

Override brakes are allowed on vehicles with less that 2000kg GTM, according to the site I accessed, but I suspect that that figure is 2000kg ATM? Anyway, your challenging of the assertion that MOST caravans have electric brakes is incorrect, from my observations. Very few have the antiquated and relatively ineffective over-ride type braking systems. The number of lightweight European vans is, I suspect, very low, as a percentage of total number of vans. Cheers

Long Weekend · Guru

For myself, I would only ever use the electric brake controller and never try to increase speed.
In fact, I have already done so a couple of years ago. I was towing our then Jayco Freedom with our Ford BF station wagon on a long, flat, straight stretch of road with no other vehicles nearby and not a breath of wind. Without warning the dreaded sway began. Just as the third sway began I flicked the lever of the controller full over and the sway immediately stopped.
Now, before somebody says that it must have been incorrectly loaded, while I don't know what the towball weight was, only that I couldn't lift it. Every thing was in the front boot/lounge/kitchen except our clothes. Even the folded annex was on the kitchen floor. I was using lift bars and the back of the wagon was only very slightly down.
I had towed that same combination for 18,248 kilometres (yes, I keep an accurate log) and that only ever happened once!
When we upgraded our wagon from a AU to the BF I had Ford fit the Tekonsha P3 - they put it just under the dash above my left knee. That annoyed me because I wasn't able to see the digital display.
However, when the sway started I simply reached down and flicked the control lever straight over just as the third swing started - and the sway stopped instantly.
The things I learned from that are:
The sway happens very, very quickly.
Each swing is more severe than the previous.
Once the third swing gets going it is TOO LATE to do anything.
The moral of all this is to have the electric brake controller within easy reach and hit it fast, certainly immediately when the first sway starts
And forget about trying to accelerate out of the sway as the delay in increasing speed will not 'outrun' the sway.

Murray

By the way, we once had an early Jayco Dove camper trailer with override brakes. Then on one trip the brake slide jammed, meaning that the brakes wouldn't apply. That gave us a few hairy moments.

Dick0 · Guru

OMG!

Every electronic brake controller has an emergency braking function.

Read the instruction for emergency operation. It is straight forward.

Hit the button or slider for the van to pull up and slow the towing vehicle.

For God's sake, learn how to operate your equipment.

Ivan 01 · Guru

Dick0 wrote:
OMG!
Every electronic brake controller has an emergency braking function.
Read the instruction for emergency operation. It is straight forward.
Hit the button or slider for the van to pull up and slow the towing vehicle.
For God's sake, learn how to operate your equipment.

I dont think the guy that rolled his van was from this forum mate, but you offer good advice.

Know your equipment and learn how to operate it.

So simple

Dick0 · Guru

Ivan 01 wrote:
Dick0 wrote:
OMG!
Every electronic brake controller has an emergency braking function.
Read the instruction for emergency operation. It is straight forward.
Hit the button or slider for the van to pull up and slow the towing vehicle.
For God's sake, learn how to operate your equipment.
I dont think the guy that rolled his van was from this forum mate, but you offer good advice.
Know your equipment and learn how to operate it.
So simple

Clarky 1 wrote:

It would be a good bet that many towing vans have little to no knowledge of the electric brake controller, how to set it for safety in braking and how to use it in an emergency.

Would the incident in the first post even happened if that driver was taught the correct way to deal with his situation by correct instruction and not being reliant on what he heard around the esky at happy hour.

If towing and you dont know, admit it and go get proper instruction.

My point above, exactly, Ivan 01, irrespective whether he/she/it was a forum member. All should be aware of how their equipment functions.

yobarr · Guru

Ivan 01 wrote:
Dick0 wrote:
OMG!
Every electronic brake controller has an emergency braking function.
Read the instruction for emergency operation. It is straight forward.
Hit the button or slider for the van to pull up and slow the towing vehicle.
For God's sake, learn how to operate your equipment.
I dont think the guy that rolled his van was from this forum mate, but you offer good advice.
Know your equipment and learn how to operate it.
So simple

The more common sequence of events seems to be "READ the instructions ONLY when all else fails" as evidenced by some posts on this thread! However, refreshing to note that many posters DO know how to operate the controls correctly. As an aside, sorry to read of how an insurance company managed to wriggle out of compensating Belmont Bear for losses incurred when the 'U' bolts failed on his van, on the grounds it was a mechanical failure . Somewhere I seem to recall reading that insurance won't cover damage caused by the electrical system in a van either? Cheers

-- Edited by yobarr on Friday 17th of June 2022 05:43:09 PM

watsea · Guru

Even if the driver knows about the emergency brake control and how to activate it, it would interesting to know how many drivers would react with a reflex action to apply the brakes to the vehicle in a stress situation. I think that some drivers, after years (perhaps decades) of driving, would hit the vehicle brakes first, rather than going for the emergency trailer brake.

Not wanting to tell people how to suck eggs, but I think drivers with trailers need to practice using the emergency brake control to give themselves some practice with where to reach for the control and what the rig feels like when the van brakes are applied. We could all do with some training, I think.

-- Edited by watsea on Friday 17th of June 2022 06:06:49 PM

Hairyone · Veteran Member

I mounted my brake controller in the middle of the dash for that exact reason, with specific instructions to the Mrs, that if things get a bit untidy.....hit the button!

bratboy · Veteran Member

Hairyone wrote:
I mounted my brake controller in the middle of the dash for that exact reason, with specific instructions to the Mrs, that if things get a bit untidy.....hit the button!

So your not capable of confident in managing your vehicle without outside assistance ,,,,, I wonder what a licencing officer would think of that ?

what you suggest could be more dangerous then the original sway .