I Have Questions...

[TerryMiller]

I pull a 5th wheel camper. 3/4 ton Ram and a 32ft camper. My camper has a dry weight of 10k. I have been all over the U.S. with it. I was headed through Wyoming over a pass. It wasn’t snowing anymore. Started down hill on slick roads. That was a butt pucker moment. Had to keep tapping the trailer brakes to keep the trailer straight. I will set out high winds. Seen to many camper blown over due to winds.

The closest we drove during bad weather was when we planned to move our RV from Colorado to a volunteer job in Oregon. We were to leave the Colorado Springs area on April 1 of 2016 and woke up to snow on the roof and RV slides. So, I got to get up there and scoop/sweep all that off before we could leave. We wanted to leave then because there was a storm coming later in the week across Wyoming, and if we timed things well, we could be out of Wyoming before it hit.

Left CS and headed north on I-25 towards Cheyenne. Filled up with fuel there and headed west, but bad fuel filters really slowed us down going up over that big hill between Cheyenne and Laramie. There is a Ford dealer there so we got a RV spot at KOA and spent the night. They did manage to get our truck fixed and we headed out that next day at around 3:00 pm to head on west. Before the day was done, we did make it into Brigham City, UT, but had to spend an extra day there because of snow in Idaho.

We did miss all the snow, but it was pretty close. We had originally planned to stay a night in Rock Springs, WY but bypassed it because of the impending storm. When we called back to Rock Springs KOA, they told us that it was good that we bypassed and went on because they got something like 5 inches of snow in just a couple of hours or so.

 

[red dirt shootist]

Dennis is right about learning to feather your trailer brakes and your throttle. It's unnerving to apply throttle in a slide, but it will straighten you out, then you have to figure out how to slow down, use your trailer brakes, fix one problem at a time. One other tool you can use is a good bottle of bourbon, it will settle your nerves, but again, learn to feather it. I like to keep a few half pints handy cause they will slip into your boot, and if a roll over, or some other small problem is impending, you can stay limber enough to avoid injury. And if you're in the mountains and you notice your trailer brakes are on fire and you're picking up speed, take that runaway ramp, there ain't a bit of shame in it.

 

[turkeyrun]

It appears to me, RV was passing an 18-wheeler. Roads were icy. Truck hit RV on the axles and shoved to side. No debris to bust windshield, most likely, very little damage to truck. Not the same for RV and pick-up, or driver's drawers.

Too much speed. Too little pick-up. Weight not distributed correctly. Poor driving conditions. Not knowing how to drive.
100% RV driver fault.