Did I do the right thing? What would of you done?

[04OFF]

To be honest, Id be happy to "winch" off a tow ball with a dampener in that situation Rod , tow balls are designed to pull stuff, (you would not think twice about hooking up a car trailer and towing a car) its the shock loads from snatching the should be avoided, what you did sounds safer again, going around the tow bar itself.

Knowing GH and going from your description, he was not in some huge bog hole anyway, and was obviously just on slippery clay mud, its like ice, so he just had no traction, not have the added suction of being stuck in mud bog, greatly reduces loads for a recovery.



As for if you should have helped, well, its good Karma my friend, never leave a man behind, and some one else may have come along and snatched off the tow ball etc.

[Irish]

You did the right thing mate, although once they were recovered I probably would have given em an earful about attempting the tracks they were doing with no recovery gear to speak of.

[threedogs]

I though it was an unwritten rule that you help out a fellow 4wdriver,
But it does piss me off when the have no gear of there own.

Hopefully they learnt something at the end of the day.
You did the right thing its an Aussie thing to help your fellow man if he needs it.
Regardless if he's a twerp ,,, Two thumps up and another campfire story lol

[mudski]

You did do the right thing. Kudos for that. But I reckon in your mind you would have been calling them all sorts of names. Haha!
If they were being stupid and caused damage to their vehicle from their stupidity it would be right to just leave them and tell them to call for help in my opinion.

[Bloodyaussie]

Funny this could be a whole new ongoing topic...

On my way to work today i noticed a 3 tonne truck full of steal mesh and concreting gear broken down on a busy 3 lane round about.... so i drive past and see these 2 blokes sitting in a bad spot and decide i will go back.

At first they were dismissive of what i could do to help but out came all the recovery gear and some quick instructions and i had them out of harms way and into bunnings carpark.. plus a third lane was reopened to morning traffic.

Many of us on here know only to help where we can and with all the negativity in this world little bits of help and good will goes a long way in feeling at least i little bit brighter..

The lat words one of the blokes said to me was "thanks so much mate karma will find you"..... cheers.

[mudski]

^^^^
Last time I stopped to help a woman broken down she told me to f%*k off and mind my own business. Makes me think twice about stopping next time...

[Bloodyaussie]

^^^^
Last time I stopped to help a woman broken down she told me to f%*k off and mind my own business. Makes me think twice about stopping next time...

You cannot let one person make you so cynical. .. i have helped about 20+ people and all were so grateful and could not thank me enough.. not one person was rude or ungrateful.

[Yendor]

And yes it can piss off other members in a group, stuff em...... pay it forward I say

I think they were annoyed because they spent the hour and a half, two hours sitting waiting at the bottom of the hill.

[Yendor]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Seems like I might have been too anal about using the tow ball as a winching point. So this is good to know that it is a possible option. How would you connect to the tow ball?. I'm guessing a winch extension strap with one end placed over the ball and the other end connected to the winch?

[Yendor]

You did do the right thing. Kudos for that. But I reckon in your mind you would have been calling them all sorts of names. Haha!
If they were being stupid and caused damage to their vehicle from their stupidity it would be right to just leave them and tell them to call for help in my opinion.

I did shake my head when I did my first assessment of where the vehicle was, as it just shouldn't of been there and his mate was in the back ground saying "I told you not to go that way".

At the time I was annoyed at the no real rear recovery point.

The drivers mate who was doing all the grunt work for us was pretty cool. He said to his misses, who he left at home with their young child that he was going out with his mate 4WDing and would " only be two hours" cracked me up. I bet he was in the shit when he finally got home.

No I wasn't angry at all with them. After all they were out for the same reason I was just for fun. But hopefully they have learned something from this and will be better prepared. I have at learnt something just from talking about it.