The Importance of BREAKAWAY CABLES.
Recently, I attended an agricultural auction. Many bidders had taken trailers of all shapes and sizes in anticipation of a successful purchase!
A quick survey in the car park revealed that almost 50% of the braked trailers (CategoryO2) had either no breakaway cable installed or, it was incorrectly fitted.
Why is that so important?
Failures of the towball to coupling are relatively rare but they do happen! (it’s almost invariably user error).
A correctly fitted breakaway cable will snatch on the trailer’s handbrake, locking the brakes and safely parking the trailer after detachment, before the cable itself parts company.
1. The breakaway cable must be securely attached to the lower most point of the trailer handbrake.
2. The breakaway cable must be fed through a guide, at the forward end of the trailer chassis or coupling. This is because a runaway trailer will almost certainly try running off at a tangent to the towing vehicle. To operate the handbrake correctly, the last 300mm or so of the breakaway cable has to be able to pull in the proper axis, that is in a fore and aft direction, relative to the trailer. All modern couplings will have some sort of guide fitted as standard but, for older couplings without an integral guide, aftermarket guides are available that simply bolt on.
3 . Depending on the style of breakaway clip fitted, the forward end of the cable should be either attached directly to the towbar (carabiner type fitting) or wrapped around and clipped back on itself. (spring clip style fitting).
For some reason, there seems to be a culture amongst a number of inertia braked A-Frame users to not have the breakaway cable through the guide when the a-frame isn’t in use. This is completely unnecessary and, if left in place, it’s one less thing to remember when next used!
4 photos I’ve seen in the last week on 1 FB group all had the breakaway cable incorrectly fed.
To the user who told me to F*** O**, before deleting his post then blocking me, and his mate who called me ‘clueless’, I make no apology for highlighting your shortcomings. It could be me or mine that get hit next time…..
You may care to Google #TowSafe4Freddie.
and
Freddie Hussey, pictured shortly before
his death in 2014.
Copyright: Donna Hussey.
This image can be reproduced to promote
this road safety campaign.