I was bumper deep in a swamp, down some God forsaken snowmobile trail, on what was very likely a much better trail in the dead of winter then at that moment in late fall. I was pushing hard for home. When you get into deep mud and water in the middle of the night it really sucks to have to explain to your date that your going to be walking a few miles to civilization to call for a tow. I push harder when it's deep cause I really don't care for sleeping in the truck or walking deep in the forest in the black of night.
The thing about water is that you can NOT see what's under it. What was under it was a big log, dead across the "trail". The trail was the right edge of a very spooky, and deep, swamp. This tree had fallen into the water from the forest, and being submerged, we didn't know it was there until we hit it.
The log I hit I hit hard. The front popped over, I felt the obstacle under both front wheels as they popped up evenly, and I punched it to help ensure the back wheels would not get hung. The back end hit hard. The truck sucked up what it had to, and we bounced over the log. We were unharmed.
NOW TO THE POINT ...
In hitting the log, the trailer hitch arm which had been laying in the very back of the truck managed to bounce, with considerable momentum, from the back of the truck to hit the interior roof, leave a nasty rip, and then plummet to the rear seat with enough force to make another large and nasty rip in the rear seat.
The trailer arm that was flying around in my Raider would not have had a positive effect on the would be rear passenger should there have been one.
IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE: Trailer arm to the head might really really hurt, find cage barrier, dog barrier, what-ever, something, to help insure this never happens to a person, as a rip in the seat is painful, it's still much easier to fix than a trailer arm sticking out of your head, blood on your seats, or blood on your conscience.
Same seemingly would apply to any and all cargo. It would also seem that this "safety tip" would apply to many different types of vehicles. It happened to me in a Raider. I would not want to have my sword collection in the back of my Raider should I be in an accident as the implications would seemingly be nothing short of horrific.
"My 2 Cents".
Safe Travels.
Regards,
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