My friend forgot to lock the hitch. Doh!

[1985 Century Mustang]

This just happened 2 weeks ago, my friend and I were in a hurry to go out fishing on my boat. I left him in charge of hitching the boat up. I drove 3 city blocks and heard a disturbance, looked through the rear view mirror and saw the boat bouncing around. The boat came off the unlocked ball, broke my rear bed window and destroyed my rear tailgate. Dumb and Dumberer. I learned my lesson. Thank God he put the safety chains on, or the boat and some vehicles would of been damaged, no doubt.

 

[1985 Century Mustang]

$440 some odd bucks Later.
New 1/4 plexiglass window, a new tailgate shell, and painted to match my truck from the body shop. Good thing I had a friend in the body shop, he only charged me $200 for the paint job. The new tailgate was only $111. The plexiglass was $103. We split the cost in half.

 

[1985 Century Mustang]

I'll be the only one hitching up my trailer from now on. Lesson learned indeed.

 

[airshot]

Neighbor did that this past summer on his new Ram truck. Just in a hurry and not paying attention, snapped the coupler lock but it wasn't all the way down on the ball... Came up and destroyed the rear bumper and tailgate before he could stop. 4400.00 later, he learned a good lesson. I always try to check everything twice before I leave...knock on wood....!!

 

[dingbat]

Many moons past, I forgot to latch the hitch on the way out on a 4 am fishing trip.
Fortunately, the hitch came off just as I was pulling out of the driveway. No damage, but a valuable lesson to double check everything before leaving.

 

[stresspoint]

ahhh , the old trailer bouncing off the ball trick.
i did it when i was working on my trailer , since i had no intentions of driving anywhere i just dropped it on the ball to gain height had to turn the trailer around in the driveway to work on the other side , just lucky for some reason i hooked 1 chain on or it could have been a mess , no damage done , just a chunk of the road where the drawbar dug in.
stuff happens , glad to see I'm not the only absent minded person here

 

[airshot]

While I have not had a ball come off, I did one real dumb thing a few years back, all hitched up and ready to pull out the drive...got in the car and my favorite tune was on the radio, of course I had to crank it up a bit and down the road we went. Noticed a little drag but just kept going listening to the tunes. At a traffic light the next car was pointing to my boat, so I got out to check...yep the tongue jack was still down !! Wheel completely ground down and now the shaft was bent!! Very embarrased as all the traffic went by watching some idiot trying to get his damaged jack cranked back up because he was stupid for not checking it before leaving!!

 

[KJM]

Once put boat out from ramp, tied on to side of ramp with bow rope and proceeded to drive truck and trailer up to park. Didn't notice the rope had hooked in wheel well of trailer. Hauled boat up onto ramp and almost sent two passengers over the back. Always check that now! Often the best lessons we learn are the ones you learn the hard way.....

 

[stresspoint]

missus reversing boat into lake shallow beach launch , I'm directing , keep coming , keep coming , next thing i see the car floating but slowly sinking .
3 weeks later after removing the car interior it was dry enough to put the carpets back in.

sometimes it helps when launching to remove the rear tie straps ...

 

[airshot]

My, my, how all these little errors seem so familiar !!