Breakaway connection

" and allows companies marketing these to get away with this. ONLY if the people buy them! This was covered a while back and people concluded the lanyard should be attached to or around the actual towbar.
Shouldn't be difficult to have it pass around the towbar itself. If the towbar leaves the vehicle then you are in more trouble.
Many people near me use those latching dangling yellow hooks for the chains and because of what they are, a close couple of chains cannot be achieved and if the ball fails/coupling come off, the trailer flaps around uncontrolled at the tow vehicle rear. If the breakaway lanyard isn't short, the result will be exciting.

It’s all in the wording !
Have had discussions as to where you “should” attach it ?
Some say not even the towbar, but onto the chassis of the car.
Mine is attached to the towbar, but others disagree.
But attaching it to the hitch is OK ( by the wording ), as long as the pin doesn’t come out .

But really, the very small number of vans departing the car by hitch failures would be counted on one hand.
A whole towbar departing ?? Maybe one or two a year ?

Gronk.
On smaller vehicles, ie, Nissan Xtrail, I have seen one jacknifed on the Logan Motorway and the vehicle hit the centre ARMCO and the TANDEM trailer simply TORE the towbar OFF the vehicle, leaving the trailer unaccompanied down the dual lane MOTORWAY. It does happen more than you may think. OR perhaps it WAS the only one IN Australia.

I had a mate who sheared the mounting bolts that held the towbar to the chassis on a truck. The beakaway had no way of working as it was wrapped around the towbar. Luckily the trailer hit a tree not another car.

So RMD, after the Xtrail hit the Armco, and tore off the towbar, was the trailer ( was it under 2 ton ) still able to go down the highway ? Did this Xtrail have a breakaway cable ? No it didn’t because an Xtrail can’t tow 2 ton ..

The very dark-coloured bit is the tongue. The lighter coloured square bit is the hitch receiver, which is part of the towbar. The pin (also dark-coloured) passes through the hitch receiver (welded to the rest of the towbar,) and the tongue (the removable bit.)

The lump of metal in the photo is not part of the vehicle, call it what you will. The silly bracket is not securely fastened to the vehicle. At best it will be secured by a loose pin.

"The Towbar tongue is not part of the vehicle."

The hitch receiver is part of the towbar. The towbar is firmly attached to the vehicle and is not easily removable. It therefore becomes part of the vehicle.

What authority has prompted you to declare that the towbar is not part of the vehicle?

Because it can be removed by pulling a pin. In my case it sits in the shed, alone, patiently waiting to be re attached to go on another adventure. Definitely not part of the car. I can also lend it to other people while I am not using it without giving them the whole car. If it was securely attached all of the above would be impossible.

Mikee5,

The hitch receiver is part of the tow bar which is bolted to the towing vehicle, that is what this attachment is secured to, not the “tongue”. Your hitch receiver does not sit in the shed, it is part of the tow bar, and is still attached to the towing vehicle. It is the tongue with the ball that sits in the shed that you lend to your mates.

Macca.

Or this definition found on the web : the hitch is the actual tow ball, the hitch receiver is the square section or tongue (so called because it receives the hitch), this hitch receiver then slides into or bolts onto the vehicle mounted tow bar.

Hi Mikee5,

Yes that is correct, if you have a close look at the photo, the Grey Part is the hitch receiver, and the black part is the tongue. This small bracket being advertised is fixed to the receiver, and not the tongue. I have seen better photos of this set up which shows more clearly how it is configured.

Macca.

The tongue is part of the hitch and that assembly carries the tow ball. The hitch receiver supports the hitch. The hitch is the removable bit.

This has now degenerated into a back and forth centred around the definition applied to various component names and there is probably never going to be agreement on this.
Over the years I have built a number of tow bar assemblies and fitted them myself (hardly legal now days). I have also fitted factory made tow bars, as well as had dealers fit them for me. I have never experienced a situation where one has come adrift from the vehicle chassis nor has the possibility ever crossed my mind. One would have to think that if this has/is happening then there must be a serious design fault, deficiencies in the way it was fitted, or had the assembly suffer undue stress in some other way.
I think it would be fair to say that the situation referred to by another poster, where the vehicle jack knifed on the highway and ripped the whole assembly off the chassis would/should have been extremely rare and by that stage it probably would not have mattered at all where the breakaway was connected as it would not have helped much by then anyway.
One has to consider that it is totally legal and industry best practice to have the safety chains attached directly to the main tow bar assembly, not the chassis or other. In fact back when we had the tongue (or receiver or whatever) properly bolted to the tow bar assembly it was common practice to attach the safety chains direct to the tongue close to the tow ball.
It would seem to me that the example in the photo is deficient, not in where it is attached, but rather how it is attached. If that should come adrift due to a loss of the pin, then all is lost. The trailer, the tongue and the break away attachment point, that would not be good and could easily muck up an otherwise perfectly good day.

Roy G

In June this year 1500km after I reattached the Tow bar hitch to my vehicle, the Tow bar hitch fell out with caravan attached. The safety chains did their job and held the van whilst I applied the brakes on a dirt road. In this case the Breakaway device was not required to be activated, despite the tow hitch and Stone Stomper almost dragging on the ground.
I suspect someone removed the R Clip holding the Hitch pin in, as it was nowhere to be found.
IF the safety chains had failed and I had the Breakaway device attached as per that photo, it would not have worked.
I have a wire bridle attached to the vehicle frame which my breakaway device hooks up to. It's not hard to make and slightly easier to attach the breakaway device to as it's away from the crowded hitch area.
The manufacturer of this device should be up for a Shonky Award!