Unsafe Trailers

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31480, 21 September 1967, Page 12

Unsafe Trailers

tions, as I understand them, require all trailers to have safety chains except heavy trailers which have air brakes fitted. In theory, if a trailer with air brakes becomes unhitched from its towing vehicle while in motion, the breaking of the air hose automatically applies the brakes and brings the trailer to a stop. On the Woodend-Rangiora road a four-wheeled trailer came adrift and went through a fence. On the bend of the Main North Road just south of Kaiapoi a heavy twowheeled trailer became detached from its towing truck and ended up in a fence. On August 14 another heavy trailer came adrift in Bealey Avenue and crashed into a car. It is quite evident that lives could have been lost in all three of these incidents Surely it is time that the regulations were amended to require all trailers to have safety chains fitted.—Yours, etc., SAFETY FIRST. September 11, 1967. [The district officer of the Transport Department (Mr D. L. Hogan) replies: “The Traffic Regulations require a trailer to b. safely and securely attached to the towing vehicle and have either a safety chain or trailer brakes in efficient working order that will stop and hold the trailer if it becomes disconnected. The latter system is the most commonly used on hdavy trailers, and when it is fitted there is an onus on the owner to maintain the system in working order. Some heavy trailers weigh up to 16 tons and it would be very difficult to secure them as effectively with chains as with the airbrake system operated hy a breakaway valve.”]