I am preparing to take my recently acquired 1973 Pan Familia out for its first trip. As a total newbie to vans and towing I'm keen to make sure I don't make any foolish mistakes so I'd appreciate any advice on using safety chains and breakaway cables from you experienced towers.

My Pan has a breakaway cable that pulls on the van's brakes in the event that it becomes unhitched from the tow ball, but it also has a safety chain which I understand is intended to be also looped over the tow bar so that it will still keep the van loosely attached to the car in the event of unhitching.

My question is simple (if naive): if the van comes unhitched isn't there a risk that the now tensioned safety chain will prevent the breakaway cable from pulling tight and applying the brakes? I can see that they each serve different purposes (the chain to stop the van going AWOL, the cable to slow it down). I assume the safety chain should be long enough to allow the breakaway cable to tighten fully, but is there any best practice of attaching them to ensure that they both work as planned and don't interfere with each other?

Thanks for any advice.

You’re right Roger, unbraked trailers usually have a safety chain whereas braked trailers need to have a breakaway cable correctly fitted. If the safety chain is shorter than the breakaway cable then the cable wouldn’t extend and would therefore not apply the brakes in the event the caravan becomes detached.

Unbraked trailers must have a stout secondary coupling, such as a chain, which is connected securely to the towing vehicle when it is being towed. The secondary coupling must be tight enough to prevent the trailer's tow hitch from hitting the ground if the vehicle becomes uncoupled.



Braked trailers must be fitted with hydraulically damped coupling and auto reverse brakes to give braking efficiencies required by EEC Directive 71/320. All wheels must be braked. Braked trailers must be fitted with a breakaway cable. This must be attached to the towing vehicle in such a manner so that, should the trailer become detached, the breakaway cable will operate the trailer's brakes. It is not advisable to connect the breakaway cable to the towball itself, unless it cannot be avoided. Most tow bars have either a drilled hole, or pigtail attachment, specifically intended to accept the breakaway cable's spring clip.

Braked trailers must be fitted with a parking brake that operates on at least two road wheels on the same axle.

Thanks for these replies. So as I understand it, an un-braked trailer is intended to remain loosely coupled to the tow car (by the chain) in the event of unhitching, whereas a braked caravan is allowed to decouple from the car (when the breakaway cable presumably breaks) and grind to a halt on its own thanks to its brakes?

I can understand the reasoning behind this, but I can see at least two problems in practice.

1 - imagine a caravan unhitching on a motorway and coming to an abrupt halt on its own (and without any warning to the drivers behind since the electric cable to the rear lights would have been pulled out)

2 - would a runaway caravan be stable enough once decoupled at 60 mph to brake safely in a straight line rather than going arse over tit?

Perhaps I'm over-thinking this, or maybe missing something? Maybe the breakaway cable that activates the van's brakes doesn't actually break away but is strong enough to keep the van coupled to the car? But looking at the thickness of my cable I have doubts!

However I've hunted across google for info on safety chains plus braking cables, and I must admit I haven't found anything that discusses their use in combination (hence my original question to the forum). Would experienced towers recommend that I simply use the braking cable and ignore the safety chains?

Thanks

Most caravans become unhitched very close to home, usually when the hitch is not correctly seated on the towball, I doubt if many caravans become unhitched when in full flight but you are right, the breakaway cable pulls the brakes on then breaks. I can only think that if a safety chain is designed not to let the hitch of a trailer touch the ground if it becomes unhitched, then it would be much shorter than a breakaway cable nd hence the breakaway cable would never be able to put the brakes on? Indeed the caravan comes to a screeching halt when the breakaway cable comes into play, but as both brakes are applied at the same time I think there is a fair chance it might come to a halt in a straight line (and causing much anguish to anything following closely behind)
You have to have a breakaway cable by law - I don’t think you should complicate things with a safety chain?

Reading this thread, your questions/concerns are 100% the same as mine were 3 years ago when I picked up my Puck from A/L having never towed anything ever before.
Your thoughts regarding decoupling at speed have never left me during the past 3 years and were confirmed when watching one of those Police TV shows recently.
An experienced Caravanning couple had lost the van off the back of the car (the reason wasn’t given) and the sudden braking caused the caravan to flip over into a bank on the left.
It was agreed by everyone concerned that if it had flipped the other way into oncoming traffic the result would have been horrific.

Edit... I agree with the above post that most uncoupling does occur soon after setting off, I was always a bit relieved when I had travelled a few miles and I could still see the van behind!!

If the "safety" chain is too short the brakes don't operate, which means when the car stops 3/4 ton of caravan uses the back of your car as a brake.
Dave

Dave,
I assume you mean if the caravan becomes unhitched rather than in normal operation? Having a safety chain might cause a situation that doesn’t bear thinking about, the caravan becomes unhitched, it gets tugged along with no brakes by the safety chain and ultimately will smack into the rear of the towing vehicle unless you take half an hour to gradually slow down!

I know I’m a relatively towing novice but I’m sure there shouldn’t be a towing chain on a caravan, most if not all are braked and a breakaway cable is the norm??
Disclaimer....That is just my take on it and I’m happy to be told otherwise.

The replies so far seem to confirm that it's not normal to have both a breakaway cable and a safety chain on a caravan. As the originator of this question, and a self-confessed total towing novice, I only asked the question because both cable and chain were already fitted on the van I bought.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume the person who originally fitted the cable and chain was not a total idiot and chose their respective lengths to ensure that the cable would tighten first (and hence apply the brakes) and the safety chain would then only come into tension once (or if) the breakaway cable breaks so as to maintain a loose coupling between car and van. To my admittedly inexperienced mind this seems to be the ideal solution because the van brakes are applied to stop it ploughing into the tow car, and also the van remains coupled (and hence towed) by the car which would presumably prevent it veering off to one side or worse.

I acknowledge the comments that it's most likely that a van would unhitch soon after starting off (as a result of an error in coupling the van to the car) but, assuming for the moment that unhitching could occur at any time, why would anyone prefer that their van either (a) decouples and grinds to a sudden halt and gets rammed by cars following behind, or (b) decouples and flips onto its side or veers into oncoming traffic for some reason (eg as a result of unbalanced L/R braking, crosswinds, road camber, broken road surface, jockey wheel road contact, etc etc .....)?

Please understand that I am not trying to create a panic here :-) But once I started out on the thought process of what exactly would happen if the van unhitched out on the open road it seems to me that it would be optimistic to expect a result in which the van slowed down stably and linearly to graceful halt while all the traffic behind conveniently swerved around it.

Given that the breakaway cable and safety chain lengths are correctly chosen (not exactly rocket science!), having both would still seem to me to be the best solution. But I stress that I am a total novice here and there is presumably some good reason why vans would normally not have a safety chain fitted.

PS re the comments above concerning 3/4 ton of un-braked van crashing into the back of the tow car, just my tuppence worth but (a) I think this might be preferable to it ploughing off into the ditch or oncoming traffic or flipping onto its side, (b) given the aerodynamic drag acting on the van I think that contact with the tow car could be quite soft assuming the tow car slows down gently. Certainly replacing a rear bumper would be less costly than a road accident from a rogue van.