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quoteCaravan snaking can be a frightening experience and the damage caused when a caravan jack-knifes can be catastrophic.
In this video we explain what caravan snaking and jack-knifing is and offer some practical hints and tip to help prevent it from happening in the first place as well as what to do if you’re in the unfortunate event that you do experience a snaking outfit.
What is caravan snaking?
Snaking is where a caravan starts to oscillate and becomes out of alignment with the tow car. It can be quite frightening as your caravan is swinging from left to right, and back to left, out of control. If the driver doesn’t take some positive action and do something about it the likelihood is, it will go completely out of control and an accident will result, and possibly a jack-knife.
What is caravan jack knifing?
Jack-knifing is where the caravan ends up next to the tow car or on its side next to the car or forward of the tow hitch. This normally happens when the driver has not corrected a snaking situation and the caravan is forced to pivot heavily on the towbar.
How to prevent caravan snaking
The best way to prevent snaking starts with loading your caravan with the weight distributed appropriately – not too much weight in the front, not too much the back.
Secondly, the correct caravan noseweight, is important as too much noseweight can cause instability.
Also that caravan is correctly hitched up.
Finally, as well as your caravan’s load distribution, the last thing to check is the caravan’s tyres.
The tyres on your caravan are the only contact you’ve got with the road surface, so you need to check tyre pressures and tread depth, the age of the caravan tyres, their condition, and the wheel torque settings. Remember our tyre PACT as a way of checking your caravan tyres and wheels are good for travel.
Frank, a former roads traffic police officers, who is now an instructor at Towing Solutions, urged caravanners to make sure the wheels are secure.
“Are the torque settings correct on each of the nuts?” he asked. “There’s good history of caravan wheels becoming detached from the caravan. If you have your wheel changed on your car because you’ve got a flat tyre, the torque settings should be checked very soon afterwards. And that’s the same for a caravan.”
Although many modern caravans will have a stabilizer system based in the hitch, it will not stop a badly laden caravan from snaking, said Frank.
“The caravan needs to be set up first for the hitch to even have a chance,” he added. “Prevention is far better than cure. If you’ve got an inherently unstable caravan because it’s badly loaded, the other devices aren’t really going to get the best of chances. Load your caravan appropriately and don’t get yourself into the danger.”
There are also electronic devices, such as the AL-KO automatic trailer control (ATC) system which will help to reduce instability and prevent snaking. These will get you a caravan insurance discount with Caravan Guard.
What to do if you experience caravan snaking
A common misconception is to put your foot down and power through it, but Frank says this is probably one of the most dangerous things you could do.
Here’s Frank’s top tips to help bring a snaking caravan under control:
- Relax and loosen your grip on the steering wheel. Still hold the wheel firmly but relax as much as possible so you’re not locking the steering into a fixed position.
- Reduce your speed. Lift your feet off the pedals, and avoid braking as this will slow the tow car down too quickly for the caravan.
- Lose road speed by working your way down the gears
- Pull over somewhere safe to check over your outfit. Remember to switch on your hazard lights.
Over to you…?
Do you have any hints and tips to prevent or deal with caravan snaking? We’d love to hear your comments in the box below.
I had a snaking caravan following a caravan tyre blowout, whilst towing along a French motorway.
Double whammy !
Fortunately my boys and I were all ok as I managed to bring the unit to a slow and safe stop..BUT…
Ever tried to remove a spare tyre from its cradle on a French motorway ….. it pulls out into the “ fast” lane ….. not the hard shoulder , as they drive on the right in France.
Lesson learnt ! …… Remove caravan spare tyre and store in the vehicle, on all future foreign towing travels, from that episode onwards. (Incidentally all the caravan tyres were new for that trip. )
Oh, and on a motorway a warning triangle gets thrown skywards, when passed by any vehicles travelling at speed. Another valuable lesson.
Thanks for sharing this experience and your tips Debi and glad you’re all okay!
How do you correct snaking when driving an automatic car
Many thanks
Slow right down, allowing the caravan to fall back behind your vehicle
If you go to caravan “Differential Stability” in google you will find a post from me to this site on the subject
My caravan started snaking when a HGV passed fast and close, I steered straight, slowed gently and got it back under control. My scariest experience was as a motorcyclist with a trailer, when I was taking it empty to collect a load of firewood, on the motorway. If you think snaking is bad when your tow vehicle gas 4 wheels, try it with 2! Or better, don’t. I steadily deceased speed and got it back, was amazed I wasn’t dead, dry mouth, feeling sick; continued to the forest, filled up and came back on minor roads then never used the bike/trailer combo again.
Held up for an hour by an overturned caravan today, near Oxford. It looked almost intact, and the towing vehicle little worse, but it seemed a big van for a medium sized saloon. Must have been a terrifying experience! We find that having a car/van weight ration of 2:1, correct loading and ‘trailer sway control’ built into the car’s computer mean no problems even towing in heavy motorway traffic. The technology helps a lot, but the weights are the thing; we almost never had difficulty even before stability control, AlKo hitches, etc, had been invented, by following that mantra.
Really good article but I think you just need to be careful about Frank’s step 3 of going down the gears to reduce the road speed. Going down the gears in a manual entails clutch down hand off steering wheel to interact with the gear lever. All of these actions reduce the control of the handling of the car where the emphasis should be on steering with natural deceleration (in the gear you are in) to allow the car to regain control. If going down hill it may be necessary to use the brake BUT this must be done with the greatest of control (not easy in this situation) and it is what I call “Eggshell” braking. Imagine there is an egg between your foot and the brake pedal and you use the brake “without” breaking the egg. As the car regains control (hopefully with fingers crossed) then it would be wise to do a “down gear” change to a suitable gear to allow yourself to regain composure and if necessary pull over to do some caravan checks. Happy tugging everyone and stay safe out there. 🙂
We had a snaking van last week on M5. LGV passed on inside which started the snake. It was quite scary, especially for the kids in the back! I kept straight line and took foot off accelerator. Snake eventually stopped after about 50 long metres! Load was fine, tyre pressures ok, rest of journey was very tentative to Somerset.
Glad to hear it all ended well James but does sound like a scary experience.
Good video, picked up some really good hints how to get out of the snaking. hope I never have to use them, but better knowing how than not knowing.
Thanks Iain
Most importantly is drive within your capabilities, go at the speed that doesn’t take you out of your comfort zone, not over the speed limit ad if you have to readjust to keep you within the limits, we all do it.
I like these tips to hopefully save problems, and save insurance claims.
The easiest and by far the best way to prevent snaking is not to go too fast to start with and take weather conditions i.e.. rain, wind, into account.
I have towed caravans all over Europe and in the U.K. As a job and there is defiantly one golden rule ,never go above 60 mph. Firstly it’s the law and secondly you will be surprised how much the stability of your caravan changes when you go faster than that especially if you get a change in the road surface or a large van or bus comes passed you on either side. No if your unit is loaded correctly ,you have a correct vehicle caravan weight ratio and both have the correct safety towing mechanical issues especially tyres and torques then given that you are not driving in the mother of all rain, thunder and gale storms sensible towing speeds is really all it takes to avoid almost all snaking issues.
I have been towing a caravan for over 40 years and the anti-snaking devices are much more advanced nowadays. However, cars and caravans tend to be much heavier too and the principles when overtaking are the same. I tend to tow at 60mph on motorways in 6th gear but when overtaking drop a gear. This not only gives you the power to drive through an LGV’s “bow wave” but if any instability is felt, by backing off the gas this should usually bring the outfit back into line. Most importantly, only overtake going uphill or on the level. When going downhill you never know whether or not the vehicle being overtaken is going to accelerate or not and it is under such conditions that a catastrophic event is much more likely.
Slow down when going down hills,and keep close to hard shoulder when you see a wagon about to overtake and you won’t have any problems.
Another factor is the ratio of car weight to caravan weight. If your gross caravan weight is above about 85% of your car it becomes noticeably less stable. I have recently purchased a large 4×4 to replace my Audi A4 as a tow car and the improvement in stability is very noticeable.
Far too complicated preamble.
Instruction should be steer straight slow down.
Lose the long words. Keep it simple.
Excellent article and some very useful tips. We have an Al-ko ATC fitted to our caravan and I would certainly recommend having one fitted. I did get into a snake some years ago and this was caused by a coach passing too fast and too close when they overtook (my estimate was about 90mph for the coach)and it appeared to lift the caravan as it passed and when the caravan ‘landed’ it snaked violently and luckily it happened very quickly and I did not panic and was quite relaxed and as we were going downhill it probably took longer to get under control. Once under control we carried on to the next service station and checked the loads and they were as I had packed them. This was purely the coach going too fast and too close……. Thankfully they don’t drive coaches like that these days, I’m glad to say.
I put luv drivers.but should have been LGV drivers.!!
Never put too much weight or any at the back of caravan.always put heavey stuff over middle axel.and always do not exceed 60 mph on motor ways especially when overtaking luv.the reason why luv lorries Jack-knifing is they have there load on the tail end of the trailer or a blowout on the tyres.!!
Very informative but I just hope I never have to apply the guidance in a real situation. I will focus on the prevention advice.