WHY leave trailer hitch on !

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Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
As for hitting your shins, it's not too hard to watch where you are going. That seems like something that's pretty easy to avoid.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to bang your shin on one when it's installed on a giant 4 door long bed pickup parked at a mall or a WM and already sticking out 2 feet past the other cars...

My take on the tailgaters, if your having that much of an issue with tailgaters that you feel a hitch sticking out is going to deter them, perhaps you might want to think about either speeding up or pulling aside to let them by. Where I live there are a lot of pickup drivers that go 5-10 under the limit, hold up traffic, with no load or trailer, then give you an evil eye or a finger when you pass them.
 
Originally Posted By: volk06
Why? Because I use it a lot of the time, it's not illegal in Iowa and it'll teach the person who rear ends me to be pay better attention instead of texting or being distracted.


this!
 
It is not a "hitch" 1st of all. It is a ball mount or draw bar. The hitch is the part mounted to the vehicle's frame or bumper( called the receiver ).

Nothing wrong with leaving them in. If you can't avoid one while walking around a vehicle you are blind and pretty darn dumb and deserve to bang you shin. Watch where you are going! If you can't miss one with your vehicle in a parking lot, no matter how small/narrow the lot is, you shouldn't be driving as you are coming way too close to the other vehicle if you will hit the ball mount. These states with laws against leaving them in are freaking stupid. One of the most asinine laws I have ever heard of.

I leave mine in when I am at a period where I will use the boat a lot. I am not taking it out every use. I use a locking hitch pin and it is a PITB to remove it. So the ball mount stays in the hitch from say the end of May - late August for fishing and then it goes in the 1st of October and stays through mid February for duck season. I do remove it when I know I will go an extended period without towing just so it doesn't seize in the receiver.

I have had it save my vehicle from damage a couple times too when a moron rear ended me. Trashes their grille/front end and does nothing to my vehicle.
laugh.gif
 
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Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl


As for hitting your shins, it's not too hard to watch where you are going. That seems like something that's pretty easy to avoid.


But that would require people to take responsibility for themselves.

Its easier to complain about what someone else should/shouldn't be doing.
 
Originally Posted By: Propflux01

You'd be surprised how easy it is to bang your shin on one when it's installed on a giant 4 door long bed pickup parked at a mall or a WM and already sticking out 2 feet past the other cars...


Here is a novel idea. Actually look where you are going and pay attention as you are walking. That way you won't walk into things and feel so foolish you have to blame someone else for your actions.
 
Originally Posted By: BigCahuna
A few years back I was watching a Saturday morning fishing show. The host of the show was talking and walking around the back of his tow vehicle, when he walked right into the ball shin first. He fell down in pain and almost rolled into the lake.It's always funny when it happens to somebody else. Anywho, I always take mine off in case there's a camera rolling somewhere.,,


Bill Dance!
http://youtu.be/iK_h-2kot6s?t=1m3s
 
I got bumped at a red light not too long ago while driving my Dakota with the hitch in place. It did zero damage to my truck but cracked the bumper cover of the car that hit me. It does provide protection to the back of the truck but may cause unnecessary damage to the other drivers vehicle.
 
Originally Posted By: FFeng7
I got bumped at a red light not too long ago while driving my Dakota with the hitch in place. It did zero damage to my truck but cracked the bumper cover of the car that hit me. It does provide protection to the back of the truck but may cause unnecessary damage to the other drdriversivers vehicle.


I should add that I usually keep mine removed.
 
I take it out because I don't want it to become permanently installed by rust. As somebody who has banged my own shin on my own trailer ball, I'll spare other folks the same misfortune.

I don't think folks would have a case though. My BIL had somebody hit his protruding ballmount with their car in a parking lot, and this person called the cops on him. Cop just shrugged, confirmed that my BIL was not in the car and his car was parked, and cited the other driver with failure to control.
 
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Originally Posted By: Traction
I just don't get it, why do so many people leave their trailer hitch in the receiver forever? It really annoys me for some reason. Big old rusty ball hang off the back of even newer trucks and SUV's. And most of them probably don't even ever pull a trailer or own one. Every time I get done with a trailer, the first thing I do is remove it and plug the receiver. Looks so much better and i don't bang my shin on it, or back into something with it.


Because we live in America where we are supposed to be free to do such vile things as leave our receiver in. You think it should be illegal, really? Its illegal to drive above the posted speed limit in America, why not shoot everyone that breaks that law?
 
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I forgot and left mine in for a winter. Oops. I wound up dropping the receiver and hammering on the drawbar for about 30 minutes before it started to move--another 15 and it was out. Heat and oil might have helped, in hindsight...

Oddly enough, I don't think I've whacked my shin on it more than once, when it was in.

I think I've read that it's law to have it removed when not in use, don't recall what state. I lean more towards it's a nuisance to others. To cop a phrase "think of the kids". They sometimes do dumb things. Hopefully it would result in just a bruised shin. Can't be responsible for others dumb actions, but still: I'm no fan of trying to hurt others.

As for a tailgating deterrant: really? I've always heard of that, and I've never though to myself "ooh I'm not tailgating him, he's got a drawbar in!" For some reason I doubt the typical person, who can barely register other vehicles on the road, is going to fixate on a drawbar and give that vehicle appropriate respect.
 
Originally Posted By: Propflux01

My take on the tailgaters, if your having that much of an issue with tailgaters that you feel a hitch sticking out is going to deter them, perhaps you might want to think about either speeding up or pulling aside to let them by. Where I live there are a lot of pickup drivers that go 5-10 under the limit, hold up traffic, with no load or trailer, then give you an evil eye or a finger when you pass them.


I drive 5-15 MPH over the limit pretty much all the time when I can, and driving is a big part of my job. Speed up to what? Double the limit? Hit the car in front of me?

It's not speeding tailgaters that are the issue so much as the retards who zero in on the next bumper in front of them like a drunk following taillights. Most people are not mentally present while driving. The hitch provides a few extra inches of steel between them and my rear bumper, and they are likely to space themselves behind the hitch rather than the bumper itself. It's a buffer. If they hit it, with their car or shin, they were too close anyway.

Speeding tailgaters are not so much an issue...usually they are paying attention and their goal is the same as mine (move efficiently). It's the hoards of people playing on their phone, syncing things to their mytouch or whatever, who need all sorts of proximity warnings just to keep them in a lane. Without a vehicle immediately in front of them to follow, their speed will often drop to something absurdly below the speed limit. When they have someone to zero in on and follow though, they will ride their bumper no matter what speed.
 
I've heard of rearend damage being limited to just the other driver, but I'd be concerned about making a lever with which to make yet more frame damage. Which might be a good thing, if the hit was hard enough to bend the receiver it might not be hard enough to total out a vehicle--yet still have major damage.

I'd think a drawbar would go through the radiator of most cars, and would still result in a scratched bumper on the vehicle that got rearended too.
 
The last person who rear ended my Jeep sure didn't do any damage to me because of the hitch.

Their Camry on the other hand had a hole in the bumper.
Too many inattentive drivers to take the hitch out.
 
It's a hazard walking through a parking lot with these things sticking out. If I hit my shin on one, it's going through the back window.
 
Tailgater deterrent. And if somebody rear-ends you, it just may prevent them from hitting and running, like I had happen last year.
 
Originally Posted By: dishdude
It's a hazard walking through a parking lot with these things sticking out. If I hit my shin on one, it's going through the back window.


You would have to cut the locking pin off of mine first. However if damage occurs to my vehicle because you are ticked at your negligence in walking, the police will decide then on who needs to change their ways. To my knowledge damaging someone else s property is against the law where leaving a ball mount in place is not in my part of the country.

I do not own a trailer, but use it a lot at work. Easier to leave it in....yeah, deterrent to rear end accidents.....maybe. That not why I leave it in, I have no good place to put it when Im not using it but inside the cab where it rattles around an annoys me. So it stays where its at.....yes because it annoys me in the cab, AND ITS NOT ILLEGAL, so there.

I have banged my shin on it many times, only when Im reaching in the back of my truck for something though. So I conclude that if someone bangs their shin on it in a parking lot they are too dangone close to my truck. Easy to point blame at the people leaving their mount in rather then watching where you are going and owning your own actions.
 
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Originally Posted By: dishdude
It's a hazard walking through a parking lot with these things sticking out. If I hit my shin on one, it's going through the back window.


So you would vandalize someone's property and be willing to take a criminal charge for it because you weren't paying attention?

If you were walking next to a car, not paying attention, and ran into the mirror, would you break that off too? Maybe throw it through the window? Would you like someone doing that to one of your cars? Maybe if someone runs into your mailbox while jogging, they should yank it off the post and send it through one of the windows in your house?
 
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