A Towing Accident Tale

You have a duty to make sure you car can tow or pull what you are trying tow. Not doing making sure this is the case is acting unreasonably.

If a driver causes a towing accident, the adjuster will see if she/he acted reasonably. If the drivers cause an accident attempting to tow more than the vehicle’s capacity, then fault would be very easily attributed. In the case below we have something similar, a vehicle trying to tow a trailer in a little vehicle.

This case is not even a close call; any reasonable person can say that the vehicle engine is too small for such a big trailer. If that is not a give away that a vehicle towing accident will ensue, then the smoke coming out of the engine should of prompt the driver to pull over.

It appear that the engine of the vehicle actually stop when the driver reached the top of the hill. We can hear an attempt to start the engine again right before the car and trailer started to go down the hill.

There is not much to discuss about fault on this accident. Clearly the driver is negligent. We can expand however on the issue of coverage.

Insurance adjusters often say “stupidity is covered”. “Accidents” or “misuse of vehicle” are covered! Driving under the influence of alcohol would fall under this category. For this accident to not be covered or excluded, the policy would have to read that a Vehicle Towing Accident is excluded.

For the driver to have coverage for this loss, he must have collision coverage on his/her policy. Collision coverage would apply because he or she collided against the hill and the ground.

The interesting twist of events here is that in most collision polices in the United States (assuming this accident happened there, which it did not) extend the definition of “an insured auto” to trailers being pulled by the car listed in the policy.

In this case, the trailer would be covered for damages! The only exclusion that his polices have is for the contents (anything inside) of the car and the trailer.

So Although this was not a very smart thing to do, having collision coverage would have cover this persons property damage to his car and his trailer!

The verdict: 100% fault against driver.

This Towing Accident is funny, hopefully no one was hurt. To watch a video of a car rolling without emergecy break, click here.

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