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OT,NY hitch law

J

JayinNY

Well-known Member
Did any of you guys in NY hear the new law, If you have a reciever in your trailer hitch, with no trailer on it, its against the law. You have to pull the ball mount out of the hitch when not in use? I heard it last week, then again today by someone else. Seems people are walking into them, so for there stupidity we have to suffer. Does any other state have this law?
Sad thing is I just registered 2 trailers, and never got any notice of it. We also cant register our trailers in Maine anymore..
 
PA included this when they passed the laws that they can fine you for not cleaning the snow off your vehicle. It's one of those sketchy things they can't really enforce here. Supposedly, some lawmaker's wife busted her ankle on an insert. I say, WTF was she doing that close to the back of someone else's vehicle?
 
Naw Jay didn't hear about that one. But i agree, the rest of us pay for the stupidity of others. I've walked into one before. One. I learned my lesson. Common sense ain't so common with the lawmakers. Thanks for the heads up, Toby.
 
Ya Iv got a welder, but, I have 3 recievers for my truck a 2 5/8s ball a 2" ball and a reciever mount with no ball for moving farm equipment, open hole for a hitch pin. But Id love to see what they woud say if it was welded in place.
 
I leave mine in place. Twice now I have been rear ended both times they hit my hitch and did lots of damage to their cars. One of the cars it wiped out their radiator and A/C condenser, the other just smashed the bumper up.
 
My shins are so scarred up that the scar tissue is tough. There may be two components to this.
Shins, and damage to other vehicles. even though it is not "our vehicle" that gets a creamed front bumper cover. We all pay for it in sky high insurance rates. (I like the spring steel bumpers on pre-WWII cars)
A Chevy PU of 1970s vintage once pulled in around the front of my 51 GMC 3/4ton PU (drunk, and rip and run) his rear fleetside fender was ripped off of the box, and remained on my channel Iron fabricated bumper. No damage to the 51. Jim
 
I not only keep my drawbar in the receiver on the rear, I installed a front receiver and keep a drawbar up front too....may add a bale spear in it's place if I need to.....
 
When I first read this my first thought was this had to be a joke that was going around. After thinking for a second, with the way things in this world are go'n I would not put it past some state legislature to pass something like this.

Still sounds like a joke to me. There was a story around here a few years ago say'n the state was going to make every one put tags on and have a title for anything pulled behind a truck on the road. Ya like that's ever going to happen!

Dave
 
I take mine out any ways,here in minnesota i have not heard about any laws regarding it, but i know that thye will rust in and be a bear to get out if not removed when not in use!! both my bil and fil have been that way, hooke a chain to them and to a tree to get them out, wouldnt budge, had to heat up with a torch and lots f penetrating oil, and a bfh!!
 
MMMMM.... Some lawmaker must have really busted his shin in a parking lot, or maybe had to put a new bumper on when he backed his BMW into one????
 
Several states have this law but I have only heard of one instance where it was enforced. Think it was N.H. or Vermont.

While the hitch will protect your truck and most people are of the mind set that if someone rear ends me; who cares how banged up the other guys car is; they do negate the crush zone built into stock bumpers.

There has also been several cases where the pin has come out and the hitch has gone threw a windshield of another vehicle causing a fatality. Most times this goes as a unsolved case of manslaughter because the driver of the truck does not know he caused a accident and drives off.

The next law you may see is where they enforce bumper height from roadway on these raised 4 wheel drive trucks. This is real dangerous because the car drives under the truck and the first thing to make real contact can be the windshield of the car hitting the rear bumper of the pickup.
 
So you support this kinda crap? It"s survival of the fittest dude...ya don"t wanna drive under the bumper of the truck in front of you? Then don"t friggin" get so close that you will!
Maybe we should just be like that movie Surrogate, we all stay home safely and live our lives through robots that we control with our minds!
 
I always pull mine out when it's not in use. I understand leaving it in if you're pulling a trailer every day, but most folks are just too lazy to bother with taking it out.
 
i've heard about it, but not from DOT or NYS. a friend old me he knew several people who had gotten tickets, after he saw me driving around with the trailer ball in the receiver. having to remove the wagon hitch will be a real pain once crop work starts.
 
I did not say I supported it and I did not say I did not support it. I only gave legal reasons the law has been put into place as it is and where I predict it will go.

Every been in a fatality accident????????
I can tell you from experience because I have......
Your fault; my fault; no bodies fault.....
The survivor in the other vehicle lives with it for the rest of his life. He never forgets it.
 
Well new to me but one state has the clean snow of vechile law. Cannot have snow plow frame if snow plow not on. Thus forcing the quick minit mount plow.
 
That's the way it is here in Illinois. The wife of one of the local contractors got a ticket for it. The reasoning was that that license plate was obscurred by the hitch. It's a flip of the coin wether I take them out or not.
 
I'll admit it's hard to keep up with some of the lastest inane regs in NY. They banned open brush and trash burning last year, even if you've got 500 acres of land. And now the new Federal lead-laws? Also the unenforceable CO detector laws?

As to the hitch - one question. What about all these rear-hitch carriers that are used for carrying excess camping gear, coolers, etc.?

And, my mini-motorhome has a trailer-hitch. I rarely tow anything and usually leave a plug-in step hooked into it. Is that now illegal?

I'm anxious to read the actual text of this statute. Seems it would be very hard to enforce and hard to write. Receivers now-adays get used for many things other then pulling trailers.
 
In britain you can't drive around with a bale spear or other pointy loader attachment without a guard over it. They use something call a buckrake a lot for silage and apparently some gruesome collisions led to the law.
 
In Minneapolis, on business, several years ago,
I was stopped at a red light, and CRASH, a lady
plowed in the rear of my truck. I looked in the
rearview mirror, and she was talking on a cell
phone.
It did no damage to the rear of my truck because
the ball hitch was in the reciever, but totally
wiped out the grill of her japanese ricegrinder
vehicle. Cop gave her a ticket for inattentive
driving.
 
Heard about the law close to a year ago. Heard it was the insurance industry that pushed for it. The damage caused to other vehicles costs them money.
 
(quoted from post at 21:50:43 03/31/10)here in minnesota... i know that thye will rust in and be a bear to get out if not removed
Click to expand...

Thats why you spend the bucks up front and get a stainless hitch, or a forged aluminum one. Rust problem solved.


(quoted from post at 06:33:44 04/01/10) Heard about the law close to a year ago. Heard it was the insurance industry that pushed for it. The damage caused to other vehicles costs them money.
Click to expand...

The insurance company should tell their customers not to tailgate and pay attention while driving, problem solved.
 
The DEC website says organic ag waste may be burned on site where grown including brush and wood produced by clearing land and other activities. Must be located on parcels larger than 5 acres and consumed in 24 hrs.
Another section though says all burning from march to may is banned (the only time it can be burned). It's still BS.
 
The write-up in the newspaper said that such burning is allowed, as you described, only if I get a permit. True or not, I don't know.

I burnt a winter's worth of cardboard boxes and some brush yesterday out in the middle of one of my fields. In direct sight of no body, but I'm sure the smoke was visable to many. I was waiting for the smoke police to show up, but at least this time, they did not.

All this nonsense started due to people using burning barrels, with closeby neighbors, and often burning plastic. So, instead of targetting a few idiots, they HAD to target everybody.
 
With a permit, or with proof on paper that you have a NYS farm-tax exemption number (that proves you are legally considered a farmer).

Just owning a large amount of land doesn't cut it. Growing your food or raising animals does not cut it. You must be a legally resistered, tax-exempt NYS farmer with an ID number.
 
Heh,heh, guilty! I left mine in too long, and now it WILL NOT come out, I tried! But I'm in Ohio, so I could care less about NY.
 
I've had two people slide into me at redlights, no damage to my truck, but two punctured radiators/grills on there part. I did feel bad one time, I was sitting in the truck in a parking lot waiting on the wife when I heard a "thunk". I looked in the mirror to see an old man hobbling around. Went back to apologize, felt terrible, glad I didn't get sued! Sure bet his shin hurt.
 
Well guys in NY would would register there trailers threw a place in Maine with a Maine address. I think the trailer was good for say 3-5 years but cost less than NY registeration for 1 year. Not quite sure how many years it was good for in Maine, maybe someone else knows. My friend said yesterday that you cant do it anymore for some reason. Prolly the state loseing too much money.
 
I take mine out because otherwise it'll rust in place. Then I'll have bigger problems. If I will be pulling wagons or trailers constantly, no I leave it in and I did get rear ended once with my wagon hitch in. No damage to my truck, but did mess up the bumper on the car that hit me a little bit. She was hit and was pushed into me.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
I also (usually) pull mine so it doesn't rust in but I've been searching the NYS Assembly site for bills and the NYS laws and the NYS DMV site and can't find anything regarding trailer hitches at all.

I did however find numerous references to this "new law" going back several years in an internet search so I'm calling this myth-BUSTED. :)
 
I did however find numerous references to this "new law" going back several years in an internet search so I'm calling this myth-BUSTED. :)
Click to expand...

The first-hand account of someone getting ticketed doesn't count then?
 
I just heard about the new law In NY , my nephew got pulled over in Syracuse and was told to remove it or get ticketed $250.00 for having it in.
 
I pull my receiver bar out when not in use as well - I just don't like the looks of it being in there. OTOH, I am not a fan of a law requiring it though.

Robby
 
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