Loading a washing machine where stopping is prohibited
It is 16:40 on a Thursday in a residential district of Szeged. You are driving a car towing a 1,300 kg braked box trailer; the combination is about 10 m long. You must stop for ten minutes to load a washing machine from a ground-floor flat into the trailer. The street is one-way and one lane wide, with a marked parking strip on the left and a single 5.5 m marked bay on the right. A 'Megállni tilos' sign with a tow-away supplementary plate covers the right-hand kerb for the next 60 m. A marked pedestrian crossing is 30 m ahead of you; a bus stop bay is 20 m behind. Directly opposite the flat is a private driveway with a dropped kerb. Traffic is steady, and you have a folding sack trolley and one adult helper.
1. Where may you legally stop, and which of the tempting options are prohibited? Explain each.
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Prohibited, one by one:
- The right-hand kerb for the next 60 m - 'Megállni tilos' forbids even stopping, let alone parking. Hazard lights, a short ten-minute stop and the fact that you are only loading do not create an exception; the tow-away plate means the vehicle can be removed.
- The 5.5 m marked bay - your combination is 10 m long. A marked bay is for a vehicle that fits inside it; hanging 4.5 m of trailer into a one-lane street obstructs traffic and is itself a stopping offence.
- Within 5 m before the pedestrian crossing - stopping there hides the crossing from approaching drivers and is separately prohibited whatever the kerb markings say.
- The bus stop bay behind you - buses need it, and stopping in it is prohibited.
- The dropped kerb opposite - blocking a private driveway is prohibited.
What is left: a stretch of the left-hand parking strip where stopping is permitted and the whole combination fits inside the marked area, or a designated loading place. Walk the trolley 30 m if necessary - that is the cost of towing 10 m of vehicle into a one-way street at rush hour.
2. Your helper suggests unhitching the trailer, leaving it on the street and driving to a car wash. What is wrong with that?
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Once unhitched, the trailer is a separate vehicle standing on a public road, and it brings its own obligations.
- It must be secured against rolling: handbrake on, wheel chocked, jockey wheel down and stable. An unhitched trailer on a camber will move.
- It may not be left where it obstructs traffic - a 3.4 m box on a one-lane street is an obstruction, and the tow-away zone applies to it exactly as it does to a car.
- After dark it must be lit. An unlit trailer at night is essentially invisible, and drivers will hit it. In late October it is dark by 17:30, so this is not a theoretical point.
- It is uninsured as a solo unit in some situations, and the moment it rolls into something you are the owner who left it.
Practical answer: keep the combination hitched, load with the trailer attached, and do the car wash another day. If you genuinely must leave it, put it in a place where a trailer may lawfully stand, secured, marked, and with the owner's consent if it is private ground.
3. Before you drive off with the washing machine on board, what must you check on the coupling and the load?
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Coupling and safety:
- The coupling head is fully down on the ball and the locking lever is engaged - lift the trailer's nose gently to prove it.
- The breakaway cable is looped to a fixed point on the car's towbar or chassis, not draped over the ball, so it will pull the trailer's brake on if the coupling fails.
- The jockey wheel is raised and stowed, and the stabiliser (if fitted) is correctly set.
- Electrics are plugged in and every light tested with the helper watching: indicators, brake lights, tail lights, fog light and the trailer's own number plate lamp.
Load:
- The washing machine goes over or slightly ahead of the trailer's axle, not at the rear. A rear-heavy load lightens the nose, and a light nose is what makes a trailer sway at speed.
- Nose weight stays within the towbar's permitted limit (typically 50–75 kg); check it by feel or with a gauge.
- The load is strapped down, the trailer's maximum mass is not exceeded, and tyre pressures and wheel bolts are checked before a 10 m combination joins traffic.