I love Google! I had always thought surge brakes were used on boat trailers only since they are submersible.
Trailer Break Away Kit Not Required
- Thread starter ncridgerunner
- Start date
A few weeks ago, two people were killed locally in separate pickup trucks when a semi trailer became detached on US50. I have not heard any more details as to why the trailer came off.
About a month ago, I had a small, empty utility trailer unhitch. The safety chains held fine but it was a shock!
Some years back, a friend borrowed my car hauler trailer to haul a car. A mile after loading up, the rusted frame on the truck gave way, dropping the hitch and trailer to the ground. Fortunately, he was going slow and downhill. Another mile and he would have been going up a steep hill on a major highway. What is really bothersome with that is that the safety chains and any breakaway cable would probably have come detached from the truck and stayed with the trailer! Oh, BTW, he also used that truck for hauling horses
As mentioned, the battery operated breakaways are only as good as the batteries. Many hookups do not charge the battery at all so I suspect many of them are pretty useless after a year or two.
On an air brake system there is a sping lock on them so if either the air pressure drops to low or goes completly the sping locks with kick in stopping the load.
Pucker factor for me one time in my Freighliner was some jackass was under my front bumper cut me off, like I couldn't see his car over the hood that damn close. I yanked down on the air horn so long the air pressure dropped low enough to kick on the buzzard warning. OH SHIT! I kicked the tranny into neutral and stomped on the go pedal to get the engine rpms and air pump kicking in over time before it locked down in place on me.
Pucker factor for me one time in my Freighliner was some jackass was under my front bumper cut me off, like I couldn't see his car over the hood that damn close. I yanked down on the air horn so long the air pressure dropped low enough to kick on the buzzard warning. OH SHIT! I kicked the tranny into neutral and stomped on the go pedal to get the engine rpms and air pump kicking in over time before it locked down in place on me.
Air pressure from the tractor holds the brakes off on the tractor's trailer. If the trailer comes loose, or even if one of the air lines comes loose, the trailer brakes lock up and the trailer tires stop turning. If it comes loose from the truck, I would guess it stops pretty quickly. If it's still hooked to the truck, you get to see long black skid marks where the trucker is heading for the shoulder. If you happen to be along side of one when it happens, it scares the living doo doo out of you, especially if you are on a motorcycle. Took awhile to finally get relaxed that day.
Edit - guess I should have read all the way to the end of the thread before responding. My bad...
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I knew that, I spent a little over 2 years driving one. I was just throwing a mind boggling thing out there for the average person to thunk about