Tragic 69 Camaro Crash of the Year !!!!!!!

[TimG]

Having recently lost my 1970 Z28 in an accident, I feel for your friend. I also lost a 14,000 mile '69 Pace Car in a warehouse fire in 1992. That was a car I was going to keep forever.

[Bill Rose]

Man, thats a lousy way to wrap up the weekend. It's hard to to figure how someone could walk away from that truck. It's good to know that the safety equipment on the truck, did what it's designed to do. Many of us haul these cars/trailers down highways at 70+ mph for hours on end, and never think something like this is will happen to us.

We always stop at rest stops and check out the trailers/hitches/safety chains, etc, and also check the car and straps inside the trailers. I would be very interested in how this happened, and how it might be avoided in the future, for those of us who do this through the show car season. I'd also like to see the trailer ball, if thats at all possible. That is the one part of the hitching system, that I usually don't think about failing.

This looks like a violent crash that happened in a split second. Someone was stopped up ahead, and he tried to swerve to miss them. Why would the ball snap? Did it snap because he couldn't slow down fast enough and the truck jack-knifed, causing the hitch and/or ball to be torn apart? Is/was the broken off ball still latched up inside the trailer coupler, after the crash? Were the trailer brakes working properly? Did the safety chains stay intact? Did the cable for the trailer brakes pull out like it should have, and slow the trailer ..... or did the ball snap, and that caused the crash? Maybe this will never be determined, but it might be helpful to know, so others can take the necessary steps to hopefully avoid this carnage in the future, so some good can come from this disaster.

[L78steve]

I was traveling back from S.FL and made it to Savannah when I hit the dead stop. Was told there was a bad one ahead. Had to run RT.321 to get back to Hendersonville. I only run 60MPH with a trailer. Just too many variables.

[69Tom]

[ QUOTE ]
Well it may have been a bad ball, the trailer is a month old as was the receiver. The ball snapped clean off have both peices, as he changed lanes to avoid some idiots stopped dead all hell broke loose throwing the truck and trailer into a jackknife and pushing the drivers side thru the guardrail backards with the car and trailer rolling over him !!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Jim--glad your friend, or anyone else, for that matter, was not seriously injured or killed. That could have easily been a fatal crash. It seems like he did a great job steering the vehicle away from the rest of traffic.

I'm guessing this is being done, but have your friend make sure a thorough investigation is being done on the cause. He may have a products liability claim against the manufacturer of the ball. While I'm not a fan of unnecessary litigation, in this case, I definitely feel it's warranted--companies can't go around selling defective towing equipment. It's not only dangerous to the driver of the towing vehicle, but also everyone else on the road.

[BUIZILLA]

the reason I asked about the ball is there were 2 incidents that I remember involving high $$$$ offshore boats having accidents due to the ball snapping at the shank taper, a couple or three years back, they were Asian made quality regardless of the stamping rating.... one accident was in the Ft Myers area and the other was out west somewhere... for insurance reasons the ball capacity rating MUST match the trailer GVWR or better... just an FYI

[BARNFOUND YENKO]

Would you guy's think this car is fixable or totaled?

[SuperNovaSS]

What a bummer. The car looks to have faired much better than the truck. Is the trailer that was used to tow the wrecked Camaro home the same one that flipped? If so, how was it checked over before putting it back ito service?
Barnfound Yenko,
Anything is fixable but I imagine it is a parts car at this point. If it is fixed I imagine it will never be the same.


Jason

[JIM]

I tow about 25,000 miles a year from here all the way to Scottsdale , Fla and everywhere and back every year with my own trucks. I am crazy rechecking everything at every fuel stop straps, tire temp, lights etc. I checked the flipped trailer out really well,it faired pretty good a couple of broken hooks where the car pulled out, dented fenders that we straightend , BUT no damage at all to the nose. The ball was still in the receiver. My buddy Jeff was shaken when I got there and he handed me a souveneir from the scene what he thought was a gaurdrail nut that had been sheared. I looked at it and commented thats the ball nut and threads. at that point the nose of the trailer was still 65 feet down burried nose first. When they hoisted it up the bank shure enough the ball was in the nose with no damage to front of the trailer at all. The safety chains were sheared as was the breakawy, but thats it. His Lawyer is looking into the ball and receiver as it was only one month old as was the trailer all being bought brand new from the trailer company. if You look at the pictures of the back of the truck you can see the receiver clearly missing the ball. He had replaced his 3 car wedge last month with this setup just to have fresh equippment and avoid the DOT hassels of the 3 car wedges as of late. I will get picts of the ball and post them.

Jim

[Andy]

If you know any mechanical engineers(with a PE) or a metallurgist, it would be worth taking it to them to see what they think caused the failure. A fracture would constitute a failure of the part due to a stress concentration in a particular area caused by a void in the material(small piece missing), or an area that wasn't radiused correctly. Where it fractured at would have rough jagged edges on the outer border. If the ball failed in necking, you would see what appears to be an elongation/thinning of the area where the fracture would be. If the part was designed incorrectly and the defective part illustated that the portion of the design that was incorrect caused the failure, then you could have a valid case for a lawsuit against the manufacturer.

In my opinon it sounds like it failed due to not meeting the rating for which it was given and it wasn't radiused correctly.

A question, where the ball meets the shank, was there a smooth radius there? Or did it look like the ball was cut on the bottom and affixed to the shank with no radius? The reason I ask is that if it had a radiused edge, the stress would be significantly lower than it would be with out it.

Its good to know that he is alright. Sorry to be long winded, but as an engineer when I see problems like this, I try to use the stuff from the books to come up with a reasonable answer why it could have happened.

Oh, one more thing. Most of the time, when something like a trailerball, winch cable, rope....anything that is load rated is desgined by an engineer or company, a factor of safety is usually incorperated. For instance, if the trailerball was rated at 10,000 lbs, but had a factor of safety of 1.5, then the maxium load it should be able to withstand would be 15,000 lbs. This is done primarily to protect the customer. Most people don't know exactly how much things weigh they they are towing/lifting, but they have a general idea. Its better to build a product with some extra capacity than build it with only the rating that is stamped on it.

[CC Rider]

Sorry to hear this, glad everyone is OK.