Bumper Mounted Hitch Systems

393.71(d) prohibits bumper tow-bars on heavy vehicles which depend upon the bumpers as a means of transmitting forces between the vehicles if the towed motor vehicle weighs more than 5,000 pounds. In two recent cases, Kansas inspectors have inspected drive away tow away operations in which the connection between the power unit and the towed unit consisted on a ball and socket type drawbar connection, where the ball end was just bolted to the rear bumper of the power unit. One of these cases resulted in the combination vehicle jackknifing and separating. This incident ultimately led to a fatality crash. Due to the forces involved we currently don’t know if the separation or jackknife action occurred first, but the towed unit involved had a gross weight greater than 5,000 lbs. The second inspection did result in out-of-service violations for ineffective fasteners, safety devices not securely attached and using unmarked (no MBS or MBF) quick link, but if these issues did not surface during the inspection and the inspector could not find any other issues relating to the out-of-service criteria, then it could only be listed as a violation and the combination could continue down the roadway. (see attached picture).

Needs to be acted upon at your earliest convenience to afford enforcement personnel a means to placing these dangerous combinations out of service.

Corrective action would be to add a 9.j titled Bumper Mounted Hitch Systems, including but not limited to pintle hooks, ball / socket and hitch pin type connections). OOS would read “An out-of-service condition exist when either end of the bumper hitch attachment points rely solely on the bumper of the power unit or towed unit as the sole means of transmitting forces between the vehicles in the combination when the towed unit has a gross vehicle weight exceeding 5,000 pounds.