Only One Helpful Guy at Ft. Campbell this morning

My wonderful sister-in-law went to pick up a towbar at Ft Campbell for for me this morning, she lives just a couple miles off base. Normally my brother would help out but he's in Afghanistan. Anywho, I had talked to Mike from GL there last week who said helping her load a towbar into my SIL's car would be no problem.

I really did not want to inconvenience or burden my SIL but she seemed happy to do it. Note- I had explained to SIL that the 4.5ft/160lb towbar slides apart using quick release pins and I sent her instructions, pictures, etc.

When SIL got to GL the first first couple of guys she dealt with basically treated her like a dumb girl saying there was no way it would fit in the car (my brother's Toyota Corolla) and that the only way the tow bar would come apart was with a cutting torch. At this point she called me from outside so we could discuss other pickup options.

Luckily a much more helpful GL employee showed up to offer a hand and said getting it into the car would be no problem. Just drop the rear seat and slide it in. They didn't even take the the towbar apart. She didn't catch the name but I'm thinking the more helpful guy was Mike whom I had spoken with earlier. She just described him as younger.

Luckily for my relationship with the SIL, she realizes I wasn't sending her on a fools errand and it was just a case of a couple bad employees who made a mountain out of a mole hill.

Katahdin said:

She just described him as younger..

Click to expand...

Score one for the younger crowd!! Whoop whoop! See.. there is some faith left in humanity!

You have a valid point there papercu, however no safety issues were raised, to my knowledge, by the GL employees. They just didn't think it would fit. But items can be secured in cars, they can carry up to 5 160lb secured objects. Again you're right, I should have insisted that she tie down the tow bar if she didn't. My bad.

Also, if it matters, the recovery distance was about 4 miles from GL to her house and this car is not her daily driver, it belongs to my brother and would be otherwise sitting in the driveway. She's not going to be driving it around far with the towbar in the back.

Obviously there is a certain amount of risk in everything we do.
Risk asessment is deciding if want want to take the risk or not. Going four miles with something not tied down constitutes a real, but not an excessive risk.

I took Adam's tow bar back to him (after we helped StonePicker1 a few weeks ago) in my Corolla. Laid the front seat down and slid it in from the back door with the feet to the front. Took it easy and did a lot of defensive driving (on a weekend) with no problems. It does require thinking and planning of the route. As Jonathan said, it's not an excessive risk.