Towing a caravan for the first time

The first ten minutes

You pull out of the owner's driveway and the car feels heavy. In the mirrors there is a wall where the road used to be. At the first robot you brake where you always brake and stop a metre late. At the first corner the caravan's wheel bumps up the kerb.

That is normal. You are driving something longer, heavier and much slower to stop, and the caravan's wheels do not follow the car's. Give it 20 km of quiet road and your brain catches up.

If you read nothing else: leave far more room than feels necessary, drive slower than the limit, and if the caravan starts to sway, ease off and hold the wheel straight. The rest of this page is the detail behind those three things.

Before you pull away

Hitching, lights and loading are covered on the collecting your caravan page. This is the last walk-around before you go.

Gas off comes straight from the standard. SANS 10087-2, the caravan gas standard, says all appliances must be off and the cylinder valve closed while the vehicle is in motion or being refuelled.

Pulling away and choosing gears

Pull away gently. Wheelspin and a jerky clutch put a shock through the coupling, and the outfit takes longer to reach traffic speed, so wait for a bigger gap at a stop street or on-ramp than you would in the car alone.

In a manual, hold each gear longer before you shift up. In an automatic, use tow mode if the vehicle has it: it holds the gears longer and gives you engine braking on the way down. No tow mode? Hold a lower gear yourself on the climbs instead of letting the box hunt.

Following distance and braking

A loaded caravan adds stopping distance on top of your reaction time, and that extra distance grows on a wet road or a downhill. Everything happens later than you are used to. The only fix is space.

The AA of South Africa's sum is 3 seconds plus one for every factor that makes things harder. Towing counts. So do wet roads, night and following a truck. The AA's figure for towing is at least 5 to 6 seconds. It feels like a huge gap, and cars will slot into it. Let them, and drop back.

Brake earlier and more gently than you are used to. In a real emergency, brake hard and keep the wheel straight. Do not swerve; with a caravan behind you that invites a jackknife or a rollover.

Corners and mirrors

Through a bend, the caravan's wheels track inside the car's path. Turn in where you normally would and the caravan cuts the corner, up the kerb or into the island at a circle. Go in slower and swing wider than feels natural.

Your standard mirrors show you the caravan's sides and nothing behind it. That is a practical problem, and it is also a legal one: Regulation 204 of the National Road Traffic Regulations requires mirrors that give you a clear view of the traffic behind, and with a caravan on the back extension mirrors are how you meet it. The regulation text and how to fit and set the extensions are on the collecting your caravan page. Check the extensions at every stop; they work loose.

How fast may you tow

South Africa has no general towing speed limit. Regulation 292 gives everyone 60 km/h in town, 100 km/h on a rural road and 120 km/h on a freeway. Regulation 293 then lowers that to 100 km/h for certain classes of vehicle, and one of those classes catches every bakkie with a caravan behind it.

A bakkie is a goods vehicle in the eyes of the law. A double cab has a GVM of roughly 2 900 to 3 300 kg, so bakkie GVM plus any caravan GVM is over 3 500 kg every time: 100 km/h on every road, sign on the back. A sedan, hatch or SUV is a motor car, and the ordinary limits apply. The trigger is the sum of the two GVMs on the licence discs, not the GCM.

Hills and passes

Get your speed up before the climb and shift down early. On the way down, pick a lower gear and let the engine hold you back, braking in short, firm dabs rather than riding the brakes. If the temperature gauge climbs, slow down, drop a gear and pull over to let it cool. Never open a hot radiator cap.

Trucks, overtaking and wind

A truck pushes a wave of air ahead of it and drags a hole along behind it. Expect a tug on the caravan as you clear its wind shadow, oncoming or overtaken. Both hands on the wheel, ease off, hold it straight. A crosswind across an open plain does the same thing in slow motion. If you are not sure you still have it, stop.

Only overtake with plenty of road and plenty of time, never on a hill or a loose surface. On a pass, pull into a crawler lane or a safe layby and let the queue behind you go. Arrive Alive calls speeding the number one cause of accidents when towing.

Sway: what it is and what to do

Sway, or snaking, is the caravan swinging left and right behind you, each swing a little wider than the last. You feel it first as a wobble through the seat. Left alone at speed, it can take the car with it.

What causes it: too much weight behind the caravan's axle, too little nose weight on the ball, speed, wind gusts and the bow wave of trucks, worn or under-inflated tyres, and a part-full water tank sloshing about behind the axle. On a first trip it is nearly always loading plus speed.

Then work out why it happened. Open the caravan and look for anything heavy that has crept to the back. Move it forward and low, over the axle. Check the nose weight if you can (the collecting page shows you how) and check the tyre pressures. Then set off again, slower.

A stabiliser fixes none of this. The Caravan Club puts it plainly: a stabiliser "will only damp out small oscillations due to wind buffeting and overtaking large vehicles. It will not compensate for poorly matched or overloaded outfits". Some caravans and vehicles have electronic sway control, which brakes the wheels when it senses the sway building. That helps. No South African law requires it, though, and loading still comes first.

Gravel and corrugations

Slow down before the tar ends. Most people drop their tyre pressures a bit for gravel and corrugations and pump up again before the tar. There is no single South African figure to give you: go by the caravan's plate or handbook and the tow vehicle's placard, and ask the owner what they run. The tow vehicle's rear tyres carry the nose weight into the loose stuff, so keep the speed down through the corners.

Night

Before dusk, check every caravan light with someone standing behind it. Keep the mirrors clean, dip for oncoming traffic, and if you get dazzled look at the left edge of the road. Night is one of the difficulty factors in the AA's rule, so 5 to 6 seconds is the minimum. Plan your stops. A tired driver and a caravan are a bad pair.

Fuel stops and running checks

Stop about every two hours or 200 km, Arrive Alive's general break interval. Gas off before you fill up is the same SANS 10087-2 rule. Then take a walk around the outfit.

Grinding, grease on a rim or a burning smell means you stop right there. Do not push on to the next town.

Common mistakes

1. Braking where you always brake, and stopping a metre late.
2. Driving at the posted limit because it is legal.
3. Braking hard or steering against the swing when the caravan sways.
4. Packing the braai, the jerry cans and the toolbox at the back of the caravan.

By the time you reach the campsite, the part everyone dreads is behind you. The part everyone gets wrong, reversing onto the stand, has its own page: reversing a caravan.