Semi truck strap binder versus human jaw
The rail is typically integral to the trailer. But the winches can slide off the ends of the trailer to be added/removed/replaced. If they're not properly secured or removed they wind up as litter. Could have been a simple oversight with possibly catastrophic consequences, or sheer negligence - we'll probably never know. Some years back an unsecured driveline on the back of a semi caused a fatality accident and the offending truck/driver was never located.
If there was more to the winch when the first car hit it, it might have been the broken tail of a strap or just additional 'junk' attached to it. Maybe a bungee or something. Or it wasn't even on a 'real' trailer and was some hick-ified mess someone had tried to adapt to their pickup or homemade trailer. Lots of folks buy junk like this and don't know how to operate it or put heavier duty hardware onto a lighter duty truck/trailer without thinking.
Heck, these days plenty of 'truckers' get graduated onto the road with almost no training on their equipment - only on the driving part, and are left to their own devices to figure out how to secure things.
With the driver shortage and demand for trucking, there's lots of sketchy stuff happening out on the open road. Slightly sketchier the closer you get to the southern border in my experience - but those cross-border ops are taking place all over the country these days now too.
The rail is typically integral to the trailer. But the winches can slide off the ends of the trailer to be added/removed/replaced. If they're not properly secured or removed they wind up as litter. Could have been a simple oversight with possibly catastrophic consequences, or sheer negligence - we'll probably never know. Some years back an unsecured driveline on the back of a semi caused a fatality accident and the offending truck/driver was never located.
If there was more to the winch when the first car hit it, it might have been the broken tail of a strap or just additional 'junk' attached to it. Maybe a bungee or something. Or it wasn't even on a 'real' trailer and was some hick-ified mess someone had tried to adapt to their pickup or homemade trailer. Lots of folks buy junk like this and don't know how to operate it or put heavier duty hardware onto a lighter duty truck/trailer without thinking.
Heck, these days plenty of 'truckers' get graduated onto the road with almost no training on their equipment - only on the driving part, and are left to their own devices to figure out how to secure things.
With the driver shortage and demand for trucking, there's lots of sketchy stuff happening out on the open road. Slightly sketchier the closer you get to the southern border in my experience - but those cross-border ops are taking place all over the country these days now too.