When loading a car on a trailer, refrain from doing so on a steep incline especially with a light tow vehicle. What may happen is when you pull the vehicle to be trailered onto the ramps, there is sufficient seesaw force to unload the rear tires of the tow rig enough to let the whole contraption to start rolling down hill. It makes it worse when the vehicle to be trailered is so low on ATF that it doesn't catch when you try to put it into reverse to back off and reload the rear tow rig tires.

But a quick thinking bystander can hop in the tow rig, apply the brakes before the tow rig is stopped by a parked car up ahead.

Or if you are forced to load on a hill, put the tow rig in 4wd, apply the brakes and either pull the breakaway tether for the trailer or manually actuate them on the controller.

How do you know this

Don't ask.

Some years ago i was helping someone get an old car home. I had an fullsize Blazer and we parked going down hill so the old car we were loading on the trailer would just roll on with minimal pushing.

The guy was bringing the car home was a friend of a friend and a maniac. The old car was a Ford? with no brakes it turned out, which I did not know about. We pushed the car into the street and it got rolling down the hill. It hit the trailer ramps and started rocking the Blazer off the back wheels. The truck went about 50 feet down the hill leaving skid marks as it bounced. The car went up on the trailer and over the bar on the front of the trailer deck. The transmission pan ended up on the bar.

I thought the tranny in my blazer was broken for sure but the old Chevy was unscathed. We brought the rig over to my friends house and got the car back over the bar using a backhoe to lift the Ford.

As the trailer belonged to my friend, i just unhooked and said "See you later"

Wheel chocks, you get them at the trailer store. 4 of them. 2 for the front wheels of tow vehicle and 2 for the trailer. Just trying to help out.

Excellent advice. Blocking the trailer tires helps this situation, which is not limited to light tow vehicles. A trick I use is to put a large 8" x 8" x 12" block of wood under the rear crossmember on the trailer so that when you load the car on the trailer and the rear of the trailer goes down, causing the front of the trailer to try to pull the rear wheels of the tow vehicle off of the ground, the trailer's movement is limited by the block of wood.

My 4,000 lb '68 Sport Fury will try to lift the rear wheels of my 2002 Dodge Ram 1/2 ton Quad Cab pickup off the ground when I load it on the open trailer that I co-own.

Trailer Loading 102 - Trailered vehicle's parking brake: Never trust the parking brake to hold a car on a trailer when the trailer is not on level ground. Keep the straps on and get someone inside the car when loading or unloading to apply the brake pedal.

sounds more like confession than training.......sooo

ALWAYS LOCK THE BALL CLASP BEFORE LOADING OR UNLOADING

Well I will throw in my experience.
In 2003 we were paving a parking lot for Best Buy on a Saturday where we had bought the asphalt plant to be open. We had scheduled to do 1,800 tons that day. An hour into the paving the paver box went down. Being that we did not have a low boy on the site I went with one of the ten wheelers with a 20 ton tag along trailer to go get another paving box. The only problem was the trailer had steel ramps and we were picking up a paving box with flat steel tracks which equals no grip/traction. To make a long story short loading the machine was an adventure but unloading the 28,000 lb machine was religious experiance. I was inching the machine off slowly and then it instantly slid sideways off the ramps to the ground perfectly with me on it. The best part one of the drivers comes up to me and said "boy you are a brave man Dom for staying on." I had to tell him that I was to slow to jump off.

So the moral of the story is "steel on steel is not a good thing when it comes to trailer loading"

About loading with the ball clasp locked, my father in law learned that the hard way in Daytona during bike week. The body shop fixed the tail gate on his jeep. Experience is the best teacher

For those of you who know Gary Augiera, he did the same thing as Ted loading his 8957lb Dodge station wagon for Mopar day at New England Dragway this year. He was lucky the bull nose missed his tailgate. He only banged up the bumper on his new Dodge Pick-up.

And speaking of new Dodge pick-ups, there was the time I forgot the tailgate was down when I turned a corner backing up. The hand jack on the tongue of the trailer smashed into the tailgate on my brand new demo. Yikes!

Did that with my first dodge, then did it again with the F-150 I replaced it with.

i was fortunate enough the only damage was to my ego....as there was quite an audience