#Trailer breakaway cable laws driver

It’s a rare occurrence, but if it were to happen the breakaway brakes can’t activate.

While many caravanners loop the steel breakaway cable though a shackle or towbar eyelet, that will not help at all if the towbar assembly pulls away from the vehicle. Leave it for long enough and you’ll end up with not only a flat house battery at camp but also inoperative breakaway brakes next time you hitch up (until the tow vehicle sufficiently charges the battery). If you’re running the breakaway system on house batteries, if you pull out the pin (for example when unhitching the tow vehicle at camp) and don’t replace it, the house battery will deplete as it is powering the brake magnets. While the breakaway control unit is normally fitted with a battery charge check button, ideally you would use an independent load tester to ascertain if the battery still is operating correctly. The other issue is that the battery may no longer hold an adequate charge due to deterioration of the battery itself. Make sure that the pin in the 12- or seven-pin trailer plug that supplies charging current from the vehicle to the battery hasn’t closed up, or your breakaway battery won’t be fully charged. The first is that if it’s a system with a control unit and integral battery, the battery must be either charged with a battery charger or charged via the tow vehicle, or it will run flat and not operate the trailer brakes.

There are several issues that can interfere with the correct operation of a breakaway brake system. Make sure your breakaway brakes don’t stop you for the wrong reason. The use of a monitoring device is still highly recommended by Transport for NSW to improve safety.”

#Trailer breakaway cable laws driver

Until amendments that came into effect in 2017 under the Road Transport (Vehicle Registration) Regulation 2017, NSW were unique in that you had to have a breakaway battery monitor to warn the driver of low battery condition - and that the breakaway system be powered by its own battery - but that is no longer the case.Īccording to a spokesperson from Transport for NSW, “There is no longer a requirement under NSW law for a brakeaway system to be powered by its own battery or for a dedicated brake battery monitoring device to be fitted. Another circuit from the switch runs to activate the caravan’s brake lights.īreakaway brake regulations are uniform across states and territories - although that wasn’t always the case. If vehicle and van were to separate, the cable pulls the pin out of the switch body, the contacts in the switch close the circuit and power is fed from the battery to the brakes.

The switch is very simple: it contains two spring-loaded contacts that are held apart by a removable pin that is attached to a steel cable that is attached to the tow vehicle. Meanwhile, the typical Aussie breakaway brake system has a switch fitted to the A frame that is fed 12-volt power from either the house battery (or its own 7amp, 12V battery via a control unit such as the Breaksafe unit) and linked to the caravan’s electric brake circuit. In Europe, there is no requirement for safety chains instead the Europeans rely on a coupling that is difficult to not positively engage - so it’s unlikely that the coupling would come off the towball- and if it did, the breakaway brake system is very simple - a cable linked from the tow vehicle to the caravan handbrake. If either the safety chains or shackles break, or the towbar unit disengages completely from the tow vehicle, then with a correctly operating breakaway brake system at least the caravan will come to a stop as soon as possible (on its wheels at least). Better that the van is independently slowing rather than moving around on the safety chain(s). What’s the point of safety chains then, you ask? If the cable that activates the breakaway brakes is looped in a way that it is short enough to activate the brakes while the chains are attached (but the coupling has come off the towball) then at least you’re likely to have better control of the caravan as you come to a stop.