Hiway Laws for Utility Trailers?

Marmot · Post by **Marmot** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:44 pm

Howdy,

We have a 17' mutant vehicle and an 8' flatbed utility trailer. Would it be ok to have 9' of mv trailing off the end, assuming it is appropriately flagged and lighted?

Do the same laws apply for WA, OR, CA, NV? It's surprisingly difficult to track this info down, so any references would be hugely appreciated.

Ta,

DJ Marmot and the Marmotones

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:55 pm

That's a damn good question. I've been digging around on my break and found some sites that may lead to a specific answer by state but I don't have a precise answer yet. Still these links may be helpful to others so I'm going to post them anyway:

State by state braking laws for trailers:
http://roadmaster-tow-bars.com/laws.html

BoatUS State by State trailer law guide:
http://www.boatus.com/towing/towlaw.htm
Covers details like if dual trailers are allowed, max speed limits, etc.

This site covers trailers pulling rowing shells and the hassles involved...they have overhang issues like you'll have and the site goes into how to get around some of that.
http://www.row2k.com/features/features. ... ead&ID=258

I don't have time to go digging further but again I thought these might be helpful.

Lassen Forge · Post by **Lassen Forge** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 3:56 pm

My question... regardless of legalities... is how are you gonna have any tounge weight on this thing? If more than 50% is hanging off the back end of an 8' trailer, that means more than 75% will be behind the trailer axle.

Then we get into stress loads on the unit itself - with more than 50% unsupported, I see a broken/bent frame minimum. Trailers bounce, and thats gonna stress your MV. ESP hauling it that far.

If it were me... um... I think I'd go to Uhaul or Penske and rent a flatbed trailer for the up'n'back.

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 5:36 pm

You did not say what else was going on that trailer. If it's just the car. That's nother kettle of fish.

ibdave · Post by **ibdave** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:39 pm

Bay Bridge Sue wrote:My question... regardless of legalities... is how are you gonna have any tounge weight on this thing? If more than 50% is hanging off the back end of an 8' trailer, that means more than 75% will be behind the trailer axle.

If that happens you'll get a TAIL WHIP that will cause you to crash and burn and die..... Well, you will crash..

frenchblue1 · Post by **frenchblue1** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:50 pm

The tail whip is correct. or as we say "the tail will wag the dog" Bad deal.
To tow anything that hangs off that much you will need additional running lights/brake lights extended to the end of your load.

thisisthatwhichis · Post by **thisisthatwhichis** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:20 pm

That's an accident waiting to happen. Trailer hitches are designed for the axle "tilt" load to be on the hitch, not trying to pull up and off of the hitch...

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:33 pm

My question... regardless of legalities... is how are you gonna have any tounge weight on this thing? If more than 50% is hanging off the back end of an 8' trailer, that means more than 75% will be behind the trailer axle.

<swoon> I'm in love all over again.

phil · Post by **phil** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:36 pm

I hate it when people talk about tounge weight.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:51 pm

There's a colloquial saying around here that fits what Marmot described. "It's going to look like an elephant riding a pissant". Personally I think it's stupid and could put a lot of people at risk especially if the trailer doesn't have brakes. No, let me repharase that.... If he's putting that kind of overload on an unbraked trailer the guy is fucking nuts. But if the trailer has brakes and if he really has no other option than maybe he can find a safe way to distribute the load to make it quasi-legal and pull this off. Besides the best playa projects as the saying goes are difficult, expensive, or kinda out there on the fringe anyway. This seems to fall into those categories.

Again though if that trailer has no brakes I hope and pray it never rolls one damn inch.

Marmot · Post by **Marmot** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:00 pm

ok, hopefully I can all keep your attention a little longer! perhaps this additional info. will help. Picture if you will, but if you cannot, see the creature here: http://marmotov.blogs.friendster.com/photos/moop_unit/
...

What we are talking about is the fuselage and tail of a very light weight airplane, mounted on a quad ATV. The Quad and fuselage are on the trailer. The tail-- really just the frame of a tail- no skin, no wings-- is what's hanging over. The vast majority of the weight will be centered over the axle.

Total weight of MV-- about 600 lbs.
Total weight of tail-- realitically about 150 lbs.

Total weight of other stuff put on trailer-- ah who the hell knows. But certainly a lot less than the 3000lbs. the manual says the car can tow.

Ah but this tongue weight thing-- I'll have to study up on this a bit more. I don't quite grasp the concept yet.

Soooo, still a bad idea?

Schwa,

DJ Marmot

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:10 pm

Son of a bitch. Pardon the language but your terraplane looks very close to something I was sketching up as an "art car" back before I knew what an art car was...clear back when I was in high school. It looks very similar to the sketches I still have that I first drew up on a CAD program back in the day. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE WHAT I SAW on that link.

Getting past that it shouldn't be that heavy...so trailer brakes won't be an issue or shouldn't be. I don't know about the west coast states but in Missouri if it extends out beyond the trailer in daytime conditions you put a red flag on it, at night you slap red lights on it.

You should be able to make that work...tongue weights won't be ideal...and I'm sure others will weigh in on all that but I love the terraplane...I hope you get it out there. Damn at this rate I'm really going to miss going this year. Maybe I should just whip out the CC and do it anyway....I'd like to see it up close. In all seriousness...go for it.

Tiahaar · Post by **Tiahaar** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:59 pm

Go here for a quick overview of trailer/tongue weight: http://www.enjoythedrive.com/content/?id=26359 They recommend 10-15% of the gross trailer weight be on the tongue, so if your trailer and its load are 1000lbs you should have @ 100-150 pounds there on the hitch. Very cool terraplane!

Marmot · Post by **Marmot** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:58 pm

Q: Is it legal, blah, blah, blah...

A:
"...how are you gonna have any tounge weight on this thing? If more than 50% is hanging off the back end of an 8' trailer, that means more than 75% will be behind the trailer axle..."

"...If that happens you'll get a TAIL WHIP that will cause you to crash and burn and die..... Well, you will crash.."

"...That's an accident waiting to happen. Trailer hitches are designed for the axle "tilt" load to be on the hitch, not trying to pull up and off of the hitch..."

So, uh, y'all are saying it IS legal then?

Thanks,

Marmot

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 10:00 pm

It's only illegal if you get caught. Load it up, flag the overhang or light it if it's night time and get gone.

ibdave · Post by **ibdave** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:00 pm

Marmot wrote:Q: Is it legal, blah, blah, blah...

So, uh, y'all are saying it IS legal then?

Thanks,

Marmot

No, thats not what were saying.. I'm not going to go to the time to look up the VC. Code to make a point. But the long and short of it is that all loads are to be safe.. If it's not safe then it's ILLEGAL.

Post by **AntiM** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 2:03 am

We have a 14 foot trailer (ten foot bed) and a vehicle capable of towing 6,000 lbs. Larry packs cafefully, but we've had tail whip and it is scary as hell. Generally a few extra cases of water up on the tongue takes care of it; we pack so as to be able to shift our load if there's a problem once we hit freeway speeds.

With the load you've described, I wouldn't expect to be able to safely drive over 45~55 mph.

And legal doesn't matter much if the highway patrol thinks you're unsafe; they can waste a lot of your time by the side of the road.

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 7:19 am

I might mention that flags on long loads is a no no. Any thing 18 inches off the tail must be lighted. I know a lot of you get away with it but... I have a tow pack(lights) and place then after i load.
.
This guy should rent a two wheel car dolly. Uhaul has them lights and all. Load the power wheels on the dolly. stack some camp gear and stow the rest in the car.

nocturnal_steve · Post by **nocturnal_steve** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:38 am

I haul an 8 ton Backhoe and have a commercial license, so I am speaking from some experience...

Legality... I am not sure , but if it looks unsafe you are probably going to be pulled over by the cops and checked out. If you and the cop don't hit it off he can always find SOMETHING to write up. The ticket might not be a big deal, but ticket/legality aside if the cop thinks it's unsafe he can stop you driving any further. IMHO this is the biggest risk and unknown. Try calling the CHP in each state , they will refer you to the commercial truck division.

Safety... ditto about the tongue weight. Also make sure the thing is lashed down using either truckers straps, or chains and binders. You want to lash the front part tied to trailer pulling at a forward angle, that is the chain or binder on the front should go across the art car, and be anchored ahead/closer to the tow car on the front and behind closer to the rear of the trailer on the back. That way whether you accelerate hard or brake hard, the load will not be able to shift front nor back.

Structural Integrity... [quote]>stress loads on the unit itself - with more than 50% unsupported, I see a broken/bent frame minimum.[/quote] ... depends on the weight and structure of the . Intuitively, think :
if a giant Godzilla grabed the unit by one half end shook it up and down , would it hold up ?.

Good Luck

Soon !

ibdave · Post by **ibdave** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 5:28 pm

unjonharley wrote:
This guy should rent a two wheel car dolly. Uhaul has them lights and all. Load the power wheels on the dolly. stack some camp gear and stow the rest in the car.

Great Idea.......

Token · Post by **Token** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 12:04 am

With the fuselage being so light and aerodynamic, I would strap it to the Tow Vehicle roof, tail pointing forward. Maybe add some temporary plywood in the tail truss to reduce the wind drag on the big flat panel of the cockpit.

This is no different than what Scull and Kayak rowers do all the time. Any number of off-the shelf roof racks will accommodate this weight.

This method would be a no-brainer if you have a truck. If you do not have a truck or SUV then it may get a bit dicey with finding the center of gravity of the fuselage, but remember that the trailer in the back will give you some leeway on rear overhang and such.

I would at the very least do a dry run with this method and see if the wind load will be an issue.

Another possibility is to tilt the fuselage on the trailer. If you figure a 2 foot overhang past the 8 foot trailer, and the tail end of the truss is in the air, this should give you a height of ~ 13 1/2 feet. With a little fiddling you should be able to come in under the recommended 14 foot height. This also would allow you to attach the Quad to the fuselage and tilt both, giving you a good weight bias to the front of the trailer.

This is a solvable problem.

Post by **trilobyte** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 12:37 pm

Marmot... the question of legality is something you can pretty much only find out by looking up the DMV sites for each state you're going to travel through, and then surf around until you can find the page(s) pertaining to oversize/overweight vehicles (you won't have to worry about the overweight part, just the oversize part).

Each state does have its own rules regarding what's considered oversized. If your trailer ends up crossing the line in any of those states and you're pulled over, you'll face not only a delay in the trip, but various tickets/fines (depending upon the demeanor of the officer). At that point, if you're lucky, you'll be required to go through the over-size load permit process, which involves red tape and fees along with being restricted as to when and how you can travel (think about those oversized load signs you see on some trucks on the highway). If you're not, you simply won't be allowed to get the trailer back on the road.

When my camp built a new art car from the ground up (replacing our old one) last year, I wound up having to do a lot of research on the issue (we wanted the vehicle to be street legal, so we wouldn't have to tow it or put it on a flatbed). For us, vehicle length, width, and height were the key issues - I found that Nevada and California had similar but slightly different rules. Had we not looked that up and gone with our initial ship design, the 42 foot ship wouldn't have been street legal and we could have run into a lot of trouble. Modifying the design to 38 feet kept us just within the guidelines.

The above posts are the crucial place to start. They're bringing up some excellent points. And you can be sure that if the trailer's not safe to actually drive, it's probably not going to be legal. Once you've factored in the points raised above, start surfing (most states have all their DMV info online now). Good luck!

~Trilo~

frenchblue1 · Post by **frenchblue1** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:57 pm

The police will pull you over and look at the trailer specs to see if you have overloaded it. It can not be more than 8 feet wide and your hanging off the back end will get you pulled over because you do not have a bumper that can stop the movement of a rear end collision...even if you do light it up. Rent a trailer or all of your efforts could be ruined by trying to talk yourself into being able to pull this off. A client of mine is DPS and he said he would pull it over. Sorry.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:09 pm

frenchblue1 wrote:The police will pull you over and look at the trailer specs to see if you have overloaded it. It can not be more than 8 feet wide and your hanging off the back end will get you pulled over because you do not have a bumper that can stop the movement of a rear end collision...even if you do light it up. Rent a trailer or all of your efforts could be ruined by trying to talk yourself into being able to pull this off. A client of mine is DPS and he said he would pull it over. Sorry.

I find that comment about checking the trailer specs to be very interesting. I've been stopped before with various trailers and have never had a LEO do more than glance at the lights. And I've hauled all sorts of stuff from Charolais bulls to firewood to 20 foot long kayaks with all kinds of overhangs, I had springs that looked like they were flipped upside down as they were arched that much...and not one word was said except about a broken turn signal and a bent license plate. And while it's kinda embarassing that would include traffic stops in Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah, and Ohio...and the Ohio State Police are notorious for writing anything they can write. (The stops are the penalties of a lead foot)

Marmot · Post by **Marmot** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:04 pm

Well alright then. The mutant vehicle is made of wood, so I guess the consensus is to disassemble it, carry it on 2 trailers, and reassemble playaside. Not worth risking anyone's safety, or the hassle of getting pulled over. Thanks for all the input!

tomraM

Hiway Laws for Utility Trailers?

Hiway Laws for Utility Trailers?

tongue weight

What me worry...