Hi I'm Liz from Caravan Guard insurance. In this video we're going to go through
caravan snaking and jack-knifing. We're going to talk about what snaking and
jack-knifing is; we're going to talk about the steps you can take to prevent it
from happening in the first place; and then some practical steps about what you
can do if you're in the unfortunate event that you do have a snaking outfit.
So let's join Frank, an instructor from Towing Solutions.
The difference between snaking and jack-knifing,
I would say is that snaking leads up to a potential jack- knife.
Snaking is where the trailer, or caravan starts to oscillate and
becomes out of alignment with the tow car.
Quite frightening. You're looking in your mirrors
and it's swinging you from left to right, and back to left, out of control.
If the driver doesn't take some positive action and do something about it the
likelihood is, it will be completely out of control, a crash will result, and the
jackknife finishes it with the caravan, or trailer, next to the car or on its side
next to the car or forward of the tow hitch.
The best way to prevent snaking starts with loading the caravan or loading your trailer.
Appropriate weight distribution - not too much in the front, not too much the back.
A suitable nose weight.
And finally that it's hitched up correctly and it's appropriate.
Another thing to prevent snaking and in the course of checking your caravan,
as well as your load distribution is the tyres.
Your tyres on your caravan are the only contact you've got with the road surface.
Tyre pressures, tyre tread depth, age of
tyres, and the condition of the tyres. Just because they look good on the tyre
tread doesn't mean to say the tyre walls have eroded and collapsing.
Are the wheels secure to the caravan?
Are the torque settings correct on each of the nuts?
There's good history of caravan wheels becoming detached from the trailer, from
the caravan. That's not just caravans, that's right cross the automotive industry.
If you have your wheel changed on your car because you've got a flat tyre, the torque
settings should be checked very soon afterwards. And that's the same for a caravan.
Many modern caravans will have a
stabilizer system that's based in the hitch but they will not stop a badly
laden caravan from snaking. They will assist it, trying to prevent it stopping
it but it's not the cure.
The caravan needs to be set up first for the hitch to even have a chance.
In addition to your hitch stabilizer there's additional
electronic devices available on the market that are aimed at reducing
instability - stopping snaking.
However prevention is far better than
cure. If you've got an inherently unstable caravan because it's badly
loaded, the other devices aren't really going to get the best of chances
Load your caravan appropriately and don't get yourself into the danger.
if you find yourself in a situation where you've got snaking coming on and you've got it
a common misconception is to basically put your foot down and power through it.
That is a complete and utter misconception and probably one of the most dangerous things you could do.
Far better for us to jump in the car and I'll talk to you in
the car to tell you exactly what you should be doing.
Okay Liz, snaking is obviously a dangerous situation.
We can't realistically simulate that on a public road.
So what we're going to do is simulate it whilst we static here.
I'm gonna talk you through the the hints
and tips as to what to do if the situation was to develop.
I'm going to pretend effectively that we've got a snaking situation developed.
What would be happening, is the caravan or the trailer to the rear of
the car it's oscillating from left to right, and back to left repeatedly, so you'll
have an action on the wheel that will be moving the car as you're going along like that
and the car will be quite violently moving around.
It's a frightening situation
as I'm sure you'd expect so the first thing you're going want to do
is basically tense up and grip the wheel. That's actually counter intuitive. You
actually do want to do the opposite almost. Still hold the wheel firmly but
relax as much as possible so this violent shaking effect, you've
got some degree of control over, but you are holding on without locking it into a
fixed position. You're firmly gripping the wheel, trying to relax yourself, but now
you need to start reducing your speed - the road speed of the car and the trailer.
To reduce the road speed, normally you'd be pressing the brakes. If you press the
brakes you'll be slowing the car down too quick
for the trailer and the trailer will potentially snake even more - worse.
There's a school of thought that you should accelerate out of trouble
Definitely not recommended, because at some point in time you're going to come
back down into that band where the caravan is snaking. You may pull a
snake straight but as soon as you come off the gas the snake can come back on you.
So you'll have snaking twice. Far better to deal with it correctly the first time.
To deal with it appropriately, slow the car down. So we're not talking
by braking, but we're just taking the feet off the pedals.
No gas at all.
Engine braking or engine retardation they call it - using the engine to slow
the car down, using the gears.
Then look towards changing gear, coming down from
sixth into fifth maybe in a manual. Or moving from automatic into tiptronic if you've
got that facility in your car, and coming back down the gears sequentially - six,
five, four, etc. The reduction in speed wants to be gentle.
You're coming off the gas,
you're taking your foot off the throttle. Naturally you want to then go
for the brake pedal. Certainly in an automatic when you've only got two pedals to press.
My advice is to actually not go immediately for the brake pedal. Have your
foot doing nothing really - sort of hovering between nothing.
That just gives you that momentary time to think about "what am I doing next?"
What am I going to reconsider? Am I changing gears? Do I need to brake?
Again, we don't want to brake. We want to reduce speed by the engine braking or the engine
retardation, or losing road speed, just naturally as the car's no longer got
any driving power.
Okay, Liz, so in summary. You've got a snaking situation coming on.
First thing to do - relax your grip
but maintain a hold of the steering wheel.
Secondly, lose the speed. Take your
foot off the accelerator.
Hover. Don't use the brake
Thirdly, lose road speed by
coming down on the gears.
When you've lost the speed, you've now got the rig under
complete control you'll be looking at pulling over somewhere safe and
appropriate to do so, to thoroughly check out the outfit.
So there you go.
We hope you found some useful hints and tips there about caravan snaking and
jackknifing. In the description below we've also put links to our videos on
loading your caravan and noseweight.
For more hints and tips head on over to
the Caravan Guard website. Thanks for watching!