Multiple-trailer towing fatality - W.A.

Saw this in the press earlier today. I have seen reference to multiple trailers recently in another forum and was a bit surprised that some-one would publicise such exploits. (not the article which was in this forum and was only used off-road). Being local over that way are you able to collect and post any more photographs of the rig involved.

Regards, Pete_G

With the correct licences I have a vague suspicion there may be a legal precedent for this in WA? I'll see what I can find.

You can just about get away with anything on WA roads, I have just returned from a caravan trip to Broome ,I saw only one police car on the Highways on the trip there & back.I generally sit on around 90 kms but I was left for dead with some Lunatics towing caravans with their caravans swaying noticeably

Wouldn't mind a bit more info as I am always just a wee bit sceptical of media reports.

Having said that the only things that can tow multiple trailers besides trains and B configurations are graders which have an exemption.

Pretty sad for the truck driver and his family though.

Here is an interesting link to truck accidents and percentage of blame.

7 news Shake your head

Before the ranting and raving it would make sense to get the actual facts right , that being that you can actually get permits to tow 2 trailers [in QLD at least] .You won't see them on major roads but are quite commonly used by DROVERS out our way along the long paddock during the drought..

This is an issue that I have encountered several times in live in person and on line discussions. ... and at least one other time on this forum.

Seems there are people "smarter than everybody else" who simply don't understand why we heavily restrict the towing of multiple trailers of any sort and require special licences to drive properly configured multiple trailer rigs.

I betya if it was permitted we would see quite a lot of people towing a boat or a bike trailer or flat towing a small car behind their caravan.

Serioulsy there are a lot of people who want to do this.

In a caravan industry and community where people generally are not aware of the fundamental instability of rear hitched caravans, the fundamental unsuitablity of many tow vehicles, persist in running right up to towing limits & beyond, possibly half the caravan rigs on the road are either illegal or are barely legal on the grounds of weight alone AND have pretty much no idea of why commercial and heavy transport does not do things the same way ......... it does not surprise me that people will extend their stupidity and try to tow multiple trailers.

It must be understood, that road trains, doubles and tripples are only allowed because they are very specific configurations ...... NONE ..... NONE, of those configurations contain a rear hitched pig trailer with a single centrally located axle group.
Those multiple trailer rigs all operate on speed restrictions and only on specificaly designated roads and under control of specifically licenced drivers.

Yes there are all sorts of weird things that can be specially permitted for agricultrual and other uses ...... but these specially permitted loads will be heavily restricted as to when and where they can travel and how fast.

Seriously, there are people out there who want to do this and can't be convinced that it is totally unreasonable.

cheers

Back in the 1960's, when I was living and working in the W.A. wheatbelt as an earthmoving contractor, we had an old Pommy bloke name Jack O, working in a nearby town as a competitor.

Jack owned an ancient Cat bulldozer, a ute, a caravan, a fuel trailer, a wheeled trailing ripper, and a big 4 wheeled scoop called a LeTourneau Carryall.

Now, I had a low-loader to shift my 2 Cat bulldozers, and a Landrover to move the 500 gallon (2270L) fuel tanker trailer and caravans.

I also owned a Carryall, but it was moved by borrowing a wheeltractor or hooking it behind my prime mover - and I'd get a permit to move it.

However, old Jack O (who was in his 70's) didn't have enough money to buy a low-loader - so he'd hook up, to his old Cat - his big 4-wheeled scoop, his trailing wheeled ripper, his ute, his caravan, and his fuel tanker trailer - all into a nice big road train setup - and then he'd just drive the old Cat, pulling the whole shebang, gaily down the road, to the next damsinking job!!

The Shire would get furious with him about the tracks tearing up the road - the local cop was always shaking his head (nothing was road-registered, apart from his ute and caravan - and believe it or not, if you operate a dozer on the road - even doing clearing and earthworks on the road reserve, you have to have the dozer road-registered, and fitted with a number plate, for 3rd party insurance reasons) - yet old Jack reckoned they were all just carrying on about nothing of importance!

He reckoned the track-damaged road would settle back down with traffic use, and no-one would ever run into him, because he was big enough to be seen!

He reckoned there was no chance of him losing control of anything, because the whole rig never exceeded about 5 MPH (8kmh)!

Maybe old Jack had been a QLD drover, before he came to W.A.? LOL

Fortunately for all concerned, Jack inherited a big estate in Pommyland, and sold up, and returned to Pommyland to see out his final years there, without too much hard work! - and without causing any more angst, by ignoring every road traffic law and rule in the book!

Cheers, Ron.

What started as a conversation about some poor bloke turned into a rant fest. In WA you can't tow in tandem it's illegal. The chances of the cops catching him was slim unless the car was pictured in one of our numerous speed cameras. Patrol cars are so limited because it cost money to run them. Not enough cash for bang for Emporer Barnett. It's a very sad situation and the fool towing should get the book thrown at him.

Well GREG T11 - and your intelligent contribution to this debate is???.

Let me say this, I saw that report hours before Ron's post and leading upto Ron's post I pondered the fact that it could have been any one of us. Whilst perhaps you could have interpreted my motive to suit your purpose, let me assure you that I treat any attempted homicide on me very seriously. I do and will report things I regard as unsafe. In my own way I certainly do bother politicians, however, my voice is but one.

I try and base my deliberations on fact and this thread has so far provided me with nil. I am not arguing about legality - I always thought it was illegal. However, as I pointed out there was previous discussion on other forums about this and in fact a google gives some discussion on this site back in 2008.

My research suggests that it is allowed in some juridistictions in Aus and is common in the USA (although not in all states) usually as a fifth wheeler towing a trailer. My brother lives in the fair state of WA and reports that he has seen double tows (and not 5th wheelers) on a few occasions.

Several problems then arise:
There are units imported into Aus from the USA with a rear tow attachment so it is there and thus will get used
People see this in other juridistrictions of Aus and based on the power of the internet think this is legal.

There is always the potential that the right thing has been done and that the rig and driver are suitably approved and licenced as an MC. However the folly is that the characteristics are not as good as they could or should be. Should this not be the case then old bud most certainly deserves what is coming.

I will wait for some hard evidence to be fully judgemental. However there may well be a systemic problem as that unless WA is different, ADR's are a National requirement and an inspection is required for initial rego.

The only scenario's available are:
Unit imported from USA or elsewhere
Unit professionally made in Aus (Heaven forbid)
Unit is a self build (Heaven forbid)
Unit has been inspected rego'd and altered there-after (Heaven forbid)

The biggest issue we have in Aus is that we do not have Aus wide consistent laws. It only took 130 years or so to get some commonality in rail gauges enabling travel Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane without need to change gauge. If we take 1912 ie T Ford as the base date for road transport sadly we still have 26 years to wait.

Paul Keating kicked a few heads and got things rolling on standardization, however the momentum has since been lost. If the Feds ever got serious it should be a fairly easy move to apply a torniquet to the pocket ie restrict funds until the respective states fall into line.

I fail to see the folly of each state doing their own thing, perhaps the annual ###fest and bicky dipping interstate jolly at taxpayer expense is the primary driver.

I would suggest that we have a window of opportunity to get change effected given the current political climate.

Yeah I sat back and watched the debate unfold - no surprise really where it ended up. If keyboard warriors and trolls are going to hijack debates and flame people, sensible people just close up and remain silent. Used properly forums such as this can be a wealth of information and a driver for change. Remember "all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing".

Regards

Pete G

Picture it. Nashos, Feb 1967, 2 Base Stores Depot Moorebank NSW, big tin Nissan sheds, bloody hot day, a huge shed full of Army cars and trailer to be emptied asap. Things were always asap when Vietnam was active. "Why empty the shed", "Just do as you are told"!! "How" we ask. "You work it out Corporal"

So we grab two forklifts and off we go. We got the 50 or so trailers out by hooking them up 10 at a time to the fork lifts. Legal - on Army land. Efficient Yep. Safe well that's debatable as no one was hurt and no damages. They had couplings both ends made for the job but the slack was almost a mete and they almost had a mind of their own. It was fun though.

What was better was the 50 or so Holdens FB's - EH's that had less than 100 miles on the meter. Beautiful cars but NO AIRCON. Lots of flat batteries though. But all fired up okay. They did get started often. Or were supposed to be started and idled for a while.

The beer was even better after that job. Fond and fun memories.

Phil

These were the trailers;

ron,

yes being a west aussie heard about it on the news, same as yourself.

I've been off grid so just catching up here n there. Only way this would be allowed to happen if it was engineered and certified by road transport as a multi combo vehicle and driver endorsed for such combination.

I do recall a number of years ago a bloke down albany way had a 5th wheeler caravan hooked up to his patrol (one of the good 6cyl jobs) and needed to take boat so with approval was allowed to hook up his boat trailer behind the 5th wheeler perfectly legal and complaint -got the truckies talking abit

but in this case i suspect driver is hot water and has ability to afford a damn good lawyer