In Reply to: Actions vs consequences posted by Jerry Marks on November 15, 2008 at 04:18:33:
Sometimes a little mistake can have big consequences. Having made the intial mistake, it sounds like he made the admirable choice to stay with the tractor and do the best he could from there. Not everyone would have. For us newbies, is it safe to say never haul anything heavier than the tractor? With road vehicles I never haul more than half the weight of the vehicle without trailer brakes, and even that's less than ideal. My entire family came inches from being killed when a trailer my father was hauling when we were moving overpowered the van that was pulling it. Our tire tracks in the snow missed a telephone pole by less than a foot. He was hauling a very heavy trailer with a ford econoline van. We went back home, bought an old school bus, and filled it to within 2 feet of the ceiling with the stuff that had been in the trailer and van. That day left an impression on me. Just a few weeks ago I was hauling some heavily loader trailer loads of manure home from a neighboring farm. It was just 2 miles away and I drove SLOW, 10-15 MPH. I didn't have the electric brake controller hooked up yet. I figured I'd stand on the brakes and see what happened. That small 6 foot by 10 foot dump trailer full of wet manure shoved that Dodge D250 diesel along like it wasn't even there. That made me wonder about the practicality of putting an electric brake controller on the N (it's 12 volt) so I have brakes on the trailer also. Maybe a solution for us 1 tractor people?
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