While camping & fishing this past weekend at Fayette, we were making ready to leave Sunday afternoon as well as a few other campers. The gentleman across the road from us just finished hooking up his camper (Fifth Wheel) and started to pull out, when all of a sudden I heard a load crash & knew right away what happened. When I came around to the front of my RV I looked over & sure enough his camper slid off the hitch & dropped onto his truck, crushing his tailgate (this is one of the fancy electronic ones fully loaded with camera n stuff). It crushed both rear quarter panels & made a hole in his bed where the king pin hit. I went over & helped him get the RV lifted off the truck & remove the tailgate. He told me he thought he checked to ensure the Fifth Wheel was locked onto the king pin, but was evident it was not. Lesson here is always take the time to double & triple check the hook up on your trailers. We have a small safety checklist we use every time we get ready to leave, because I did forget one time to attach the emergency brake cable on the camper. We also have a little sign to hang on the antennae inside if we raise it, to make sure we lower it before leaving ( We have seen that before and it didn't work out to well for the antennae). Just wanted to share this story. It did a lot of damage to this guy's truck and all he had to do was raise the front jacks up about 1/2" off the ground, get in the truck & bump it forward a little to insure the hitch was locked in & secure. Be safe out there, you never know when things may turn bad.

Yikes!!!

my boat usually stays in the water. this past weekend I actually hooked it up and towed it for the first time in a very long time.
I walked around my truck and boat like twenty times to make sure I didn't forget something.

That sucks for the guy. It happens on semi’s as well, we have some geniuses do that at work every once in a while.

Company policy to do a 360 degree walk around before you get in your truck every time, I find myself doing it in my personal life too.

I'm so paranoid about losing trailers. I always double check. But even then it isn't fail safe. We sheared the shaft of a ball and lost the boat trailer a couple years ago. Don't ask me how that happens but thank God for chains.

Good tip.
Always good to double triple check

Sounds so much like something I would do. Get in a hurry and make a dumb mistake. Lots of expensive lessons learned…

Man, that sucks. Expensive lesson for sure.

BW hitch would've helped him.

Another good TIP is to check the bolts on the Pin Box to ensure they are not loose & if so find the torque specs & torque them properly, not with an impact or tighten them until they feel tight. I had a MORyde Pin Box installed (I got it for half price from my RV Dealer as they remove them from RV's that the owners want a simple ball hitch instead of the fifth wheel) I also indexed the bolt head to the frame & the frame to the Pin Box, colored the markings in bright orange this way I can take a quick glance to see if any thing has moved/shifted. Also makes for a quick re-set if needed.