Close Call w/ OCTA Bus Towing . . .

[Desert Whaler]

I'd heard of this happening to people , but it's never happened to me (almost) till last night.

Towing my little rig home last night on PCH south of the pier in Huntington . . . I'm in the right lane.
As I'm passing an OCTA bus I see him / her hit the brakes and turn on it's right turn signal to move over.
As I clear / pass the bus, I see in my rear view mirror it's immediately moving over right behind my truck . . . doesn't see my boat.

It happened so fast I didn't have time to swing to the right.
The driver had obviously not planned for it's stop and was trying to move over fast.

I swear I felt it hit me a little . . . I could see there was ZERO gap between my boat and the bus for a split second.
I felt a 'bump' that wasn't a bump in the road, so I'm 90% sure it bumpd me a little.

I had to roll down the road a little ways further before I could find a safe place to pull over.
Threw my hazards on, jumped out with a flashlight and gave a quick inspection and didn't see a scratch, mark, dent, etc.
Got lucky.

I honestly think the lower skirting of the bus just slightly bumped up against the trailer tire which barely sticks out past the fender.

I'm always aware that this can happen . . . especially when cars are merging onto the freeway . . . So I'm usually pretty on it.
This time it was in traffic and just happened so quickly.

Be careful . . . I got lucky.

(edit) . . . just went out & looked at the trailer . . . yep, it did hit the fender. . . left a little paint behind . . . got lucky.

 

[Your ad here]

It happens more than you think. Whenever I have a trailer other drivers just assume there is a gap for them to fit when they expect my rear bumper to clear their front bumper... I look in the rear view mirror and am always entertained by all the oh shit swerving they start doing when they notice the trailer. For some reason I had a flat deck trailer that was just a magnet and occasionally got bumped and the offending drivers just took off. I didn't really care as it was pretty tough to hurt that trailer.

 

[monkeyswrench]

I've had my empty flatbed get hit a few times. Oddly, only by cars low enough to screw themselves up. Driving bigger trucks I usually check a few times before I move over, and never suddenly. Unfortunately, that is now printed in my head as the result of an incident in 2004, when I changed lanes coming down Batavia in Orange. 10" lift and 40's on an F350. It looked like that Camry finished a NASCAR race. Giant tire swirlys and flat sides

 

[GreenEnergy28]

Definitely a fear of mine. My boss had his boat/trailer hit while on the freeway. Insurance fixed the boat, but trailer was a total loss. Took longer to get a new trailer than it did to fix his boat.
My nephew drives truck, he's lost dozens of lug nut covers and had his front bumper pealed over a few times by drivers who thought they could thread the needle.

 

[spectras only]

I had my boat trailer hit in a parking lot at a launnch site, obviously by another boat trailer. Rear light was busted, fucker never left a note.

 

[DarkHorseRacing]

That's the big reason I'm a fan of plastering the side of the trailer with clearance marker lights. Light it up like a big rig trailer. Make it impossible not to see.

One time a big rig almost changed langes into the trailer when it didn't have any marker lights between the front tire fender marker and the tow vehicle. I rectified that quick.