How to Tow/Get Towed by a Nonrigid Connection

Believe it or not, the simple act of towing or being towed has a certain set of rules to be followed in order to achieve a smooth, carefree ride. In this piece we will cover the basics of towing by means of rope, as, let's face it, towing by a platform or trailer does not imply any effort from your part. We will take into account a situation where you have no tow truck, tow dolly or towbar at your disposal. What else is there?

Towing or being towed by means of rope (we will use the term for convenience, but this guide applies to all nonrigid connections) is a type of a last resort measure, when no other choice than to call a friend to get you out of the jam exists. So, you have your broke down car, the benevolent friend with a functional vehicle and a piece of rope...What do you do?

First of all, you need to check if the rope you will use is long enough to ensure the towed car has enough room to maneuver and brake if necessary. Usually, a minimum 2-meter long rope should do the trick. You should also make sure the rope is not longer than it should, so that in bends it doesn't rub against anything on the side of the road.

The third thing you need to do is to make sure the rope is solid enough to support the strain of the pull. To be honest, there's no real good way to check this, yet you should be able to determine whether it will be up to the task or not just by looking at it. Usually, towing ropes found in stores are long and strong enough to withstand the stress.

And last but not least, you should make sure the car doing the pulling does not exceed its towing capacity. This is a figure provided by the manufacturer of the car, which tells you how much weight is the vehicle able to pull without coming apart.

After all these safety checks are out of the way, you need to connect the rope to the two cars. When using a store-bought rope, it is enough to couple the hooks at each end of the rope to the hooks fitted on each of the cars.



If you're using another piece of rope (we recommend you don't), than make sure it is well tied to the tow hooks on the cars so that it doesn't come undone.

Towing

When you are the guy doing the towing, there are, of course, some unwritten rules to which you'd better comply to. First of all, make sure that when you depart you do so slower than usual. Make sure the rope between your car and the one behind gets fully extended, without giving it a jolt, before moving to the next phase. If you don't, you may break the rope.

When the rope is fully extended, the excess weight of the towed vehicle will rock your car a bit. Don't get scared and press the throttle, or the rope will break.

Getting started

You should evenly increase the speed of your car so that the one behind is set in motion. Be careful to evenly apply extra pressure on the throttle. If you push to hard and the car accelerates in one swift move, the rope will break.

Speed and Behavior

Once in motion, maintain a low speed. Most countries have regulations when it comes to how fast you may travel when towing by means of rope, so make sure you stay legal. If you need to drive even slower than that limit, feel free to do so. Keep the speed as constant as you can and try not to engage into passovers. Keep the car close to the right side of the road (left side for right hand drive countries) so that you don't interfere with normal traffic. Make sure the emergency lights are functioning, to warn others you have a problem.

Truck rope tow gone bad

One way to pull your car...

Braking

Driving slowly will also help you avoid sudden braking. No one really cares you are towing something, so they will attend to their regular business: illegally crossing the street, jumping in front of your car, passing you with the speed of sound and so on. Avoiding sudden braking will help your car stay intact. If the driver of the car you are towing doesn't pay enough attention to what's happening, he/she may easily rear-end you.

Punch line: when you brake, make sure the one behind sees you doing that. Give him/her enough time to react.

Towed

Should the situation be reversed and you are the one getting towed, it doesn't mean you're there for a joy ride. In fact, your actions may be more important than the ones performed by the car in front.

Getting Started

Make sure you are properly sited in the driver's seat, as you usually do. Even if you are getting towed, nothing has changed: neither the car nor the traffic laws. Keep at least one hand on the steering wheel at all times. The only pedal to be used when getting towed is the brake. Make sure you have the right foot positioned over it at all times.

Behavior

There's no need to tell you to watch your speed as this aspect of the ride isn't really up to you, but to the driver in front. What you should do is mimic, to the letter, the actions of the car doing to towing: if it signals right, you signal right. If it turns left, you turn left. If it stops, you stop. Your eyes should always be on the stoplights of the car in front. As does the car doing the towing, yours too needs to travel with the emergency lights switched on.

The key aspect of being towed is to also watch the rope. Whereas the car in front needs to accelerate smoothly enough not to break the rope, you should try to keep the rope as extended as you can. Loosely translated, this means you should maintain about the same distance (the length of the rope) between the two cars at all times. How do you do this? Brake at the same time and with as much force as the car in front does. This will make both of the cars avoid neck wrecking/rope breaking jolts.