Thread: Local lad killed by towball

The flying towball often gets mentioned with snatch strap incident. The really dangerous bit of equipment is the snatch strap.

Too ealy to say but the article from Tasmania talks about the towing assembly and other bits as well as the ball. The one common item here is the snatch strap. Snatch straps need a big warning and perhaps buyers should be licenced to use them.

The towball is rated to 3500 kg as a max towing weight. Including a suitable safety factor on top of the acceleration/deceleration force when the trailer pushes against the towball (reduced with braked trailers) and the ball should be able to handle significantly more. Have a look on the front of 4wds that have lifting eyes on the bullbar. What are they rated to? Are you any better off using them to recover with?

Perhaps what would be useful is for someone with real expertise in this area to write an article, with pics, demonstrating how to recover a vehicle that does not have a specialist recovery point fitted. They are the vehicles most likely to get into trouble, and are the least prepared for it.

If such an article already exists, it might be useful to have a link to it.

Moderators, might it be worthwhile having a 'table of contents' page with links to such resource articles that are either part of this forum or on other useful websites?

Willem

Originally Posted by slug_burner

The flying towball often gets mentioned with snatch strap incident. The really dangerous bit of equipment is the snatch strap.

Too ealy to say but the article from Tasmania talks about the towing assembly and other bits as well as the ball. The one common item here is the snatch strap. Snatch straps need a big warning and perhaps buyers should be licenced to use them.

The towball is rated to 3500 kg as a max towing weight. Including a suitable safety factor on top of the acceleration/deceleration force when the trailer pushes against the towball (reduced with braked trailers) and the ball should be able to handle significantly more. Have a look on the front of 4wds that have lifting eyes on the bullbar. What are they rated to? Are you any better off using them to recover with?

Not all tow balls are rated, and of those that are, not all are rated for 3500kg. A lot of the cheaper tow balls don't have a rating, along with a lot of the older ones. The majority of 4wds have a hitch receiver type towbar, remove the hitch, put the strap through the receiver and use the pin to locate it. I have seen bent pins before, but never heard of one snapping. If it did happen to snap both sides of the pin would still be stuck in the receiver and only the strap would fly out. A strap on its own is not particularly lethal, but attach a solid object to the end of it and it's a whole different ball game. If I had a towbar that wasn't a receiver type, I personally would be removing the towball and then inserting a rated shackle through the hole to attach to. Even a 3.2T rated shackle will not self destruct until more than 16T of force has been applied to it.

Originally Posted by TheLowRanger

Not all tow balls are rated, and of those that are, not all are rated for 3500kg. A lot of the cheaper tow balls don't have a rating, along with a lot of the older ones. The majority of 4wds have a hitch receiver type towbar, remove the hitch, put the strap through the receiver and use the pin to locate it. I have seen bent pins before, but never heard of one snapping. If it did happen to snap both sides of the pin would still be stuck in the receiver and only the strap would fly out. A strap on its own is not particularly lethal, but attach a solid object to the end of it and it's a whole different ball game. If I had a towbar that wasn't a receiver type, I personally would be removing the towball and then inserting a rated shackle through the hole to attach to. Even a 3.2T rated shackle will not self destruct until more than 16T of force has been applied to it.

ARB and others sell a solid recovery insert for the reciever which is designed to take a shackle. I have one (didnt pay for it and will probably never use it) and it would have to be significantly heavier than a towball, not including the shackle. I don't know if receiver pins are 'rated' either (never seen any evidence of such). Without doing the sums, and assuming similar metallurgy, would suspect a towball in single shear has a greater capacity than a receiver pin which is loaded in double shear due to much greater section size. Howeve the consequences of towball failure are probably greater, (unless you use the ARB insert)

I also think half the problem is people overestimate the amount of force needed in many recoveries and take much more of a run-up than is necessary.

Originally Posted by mark2

I also think half the problem is people overestimate the amount of force needed in many recoveries and take much more of a run-up than is necessary.

yep,,

if towing, just drive off.

Such a sad loss, I doubt people would have been thinking clearly about where they were recovering from that early in the morning.

A hard lesson learnt about recovery points and 4 wheel driving.

Blaze sorry to hear, your community has more than its share of tragedy involving young people.



Andy

Originally Posted by mark2

ARB and others sell a solid recovery insert for the reciever which is designed to take a shackle. I have one (didnt pay for it and will probably never use it) and it would have to be significantly heavier than a towball, not including the shackle. I don't know if receiver pins are 'rated' either (never seen any evidence of such). Without doing the sums, and assuming similar metallurgy, would suspect a towball in single shear has a greater capacity than a receiver pin which is loaded in double shear due to much greater section size. Howeve the consequences of towball failure are probably greater, (unless you use the ARB insert)

I also think half the problem is people overestimate the amount of force needed in many recoveries and take much more of a run-up than is necessary.

That last sentence says it all. Most think that they are using the snatch strap to pull the vehicle out whereas what you should be trying to do is to put enough stretch into the strap for it to do its work on its own using your vehicle as the anchor.

Perhaps a training video should be provided with purchase of these straps.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Maybe it'll get the message out, maybe it won't but there are people (even on here) that I would never want to be within a kilometre of one of their recoveries. They probably know who they are.

Originally Posted by mark2

I also think half the problem is people overestimate the amount of force needed in many recoveries and take much more of a run-up than is necessary.

Originally Posted by jbarracl

Perhaps a training video should be provided with purchase of these straps.

So the point here is people don't know what they are doing. I think we all need to go back to basics, i.e.
* No recovery points = goodbye,
* Take it easy, use the minimal force required
* Gloves whilst handling your rated and maintained recovery gear,
* Do not step over live recovery gear (attached at both ends), and most importantly;
* Keep all spectators well away during a recovery if they are not operating recovery gear or the vehicle they should be at the very least 1.5x the distance of the strap / Cable away from the vehicles.

Another thing to remember is for those of us who go on AULRO trips is that AULRO is not a 4wd Club and therefore has no public liability insurance if something goes wrong. I know that safety is paramount in any case, but if the worst happened because an AULROian did something like recover off a tow ball then the administrators could be liable???

As we represent an organization whilst on AULRO trips, we are required to do the right thing, so if you cant follow some simple rules, you have no place here.

Ben

4.9 RRC