RV Accidents While Traveling

I own a 31 ft RV I pull behind my Chevy Silverado pick up truck. Previous to this I owned a Class C motor home I have driven from Florida to Maine on several occasions. I prefer driving the Class C to the pull behind RV because it is easier to drive and maneuver.

I’ve never had an accident in either of them I am happy to say, even though I have been in a few nervous situations. But, by now I am experienced enough to back in my RV to even the tightest spots without too much issue.

Although I don’t count myself an elite trailer driver, there are people out there that make me feel that way. Like this guy here:

Maybe this doesn’t show well on the photo, but this guy tried to pull through his RV in a back in only site. He had earlier tried to back it in with issue so he gave up on it and determined it was better to try to pull it in. But there was no drive to pull through so he thought he would make his own!

The driver is in the white shirt with the wrecker operator. They were being quite jovial so I guess it didn’t bother him too much.

If you can focus in on the license plate you will see this is a brand new RV. I spoke with the guy driving it and he informed me he had just purchased it that day! Welcome to the RV world!

I will say he chose one of the toughest places to bring one. The place is Coe’s Landing near Tallahassee, Florida and it is a beautiful but difficult camping area for RVs. The many trees with low hanging branches make it a challenge. Added to it the many back in sites vs pull through and you have disasters waiting to happen for the inexperienced.

The man driving this I would guess to be around 70. He was traveling with wife and a dog. He admitted to me he was inexperienced driving an RV but felt comfortable driving it on the road, just not in tight spots. Well, that’s the hard part, ain’t it?

I have to admit, I can be a bit unsympathetic in situations like this. Although I hate to see these occurrences, when I see something as bone head as this, I can lack sympathy. I mean this was no accident. It was an intentional bone head blunder! You would not need any RV or trailer hauling experience to know you could not get that trailer in there that way. If you don’t have the experience to back it in, move on or ask one of the many experienced RV drivers to do it for you. There are a lot of us ego maniac drivers in these parks who love to show off our skills :).

He ended up calling a wrecker to haul it out:

The wrecker easily pulled the RV with truck attached from the spot. The man was then given an easier spot to pull into and he resumed his adventure.

There was considerable damage to the roof of the RV as he hit the tree branches above when pulling in. This is easy to do in an RV. You really have to consider your high trailer when pulling.

After he was pulled out I looked at the spot he tried to pull through. It would have been impossible for him to turn the RV into it even if he didn’t bottom and top out as he did. Maybe it’s good he got stuck where he did.

I stood amazed at this. Any practical person with no RV experience should know this was an impossibility. But, it’s guys like this who make the rest of us look smarter than we are.