Some other fool did not install the panel properly, and left one of the three nuts off. Distinctive nuts, used in only one place.
Someone found it overnight, and held it up at the morning meeting. "Anyone know where this goes?" Unfortunately, I did not recognize it as a part one of my systems.

Aircraft flew, panel breaks off, punching several other holes in the side as it departs.
Training mission aborted. much sheet metal work needed.

Actual repair cost? Unknown, but easily 5 figures if not more.

Because golf, bowling, hunting, soccer, kayaking, and blackjack/hookers have had quite a lot of people drop dead on the fly.

You're looking at extra equipment, things like highway speed capable wheels and axles, fairings, more electronics, etc... No, they're not going to be cheaper than the average standbye generator, which already has world wide production levels to have good economy of scale.

To put it another way, the same Briggs&Stratton engine can be put into generators, power washers, lawn mowers, pumps, and many other devices. They get their economy of scale from there, not from the specific frame.

On owning the trailer - Not a big deal if it's doing double duty as a home generator. Keep in mind that it's not the trailer body that's expensive in this case, it's the generator itself - which runs $4-5k, given that we want something that can run all day with good efficiency.

Oh, and the $3k for the steering upgrade is it's cost some time ago - if installed on a lot of trailers it'll be substantially cheaper.

Not necessarily. Remember that you need to reinforce stuff to withstand being attached at a single point, not to mention the drop down legs and stuff for when you remove it. As for stop&go traffic - remember that that's where EVs shine with regenerative braking. Trailers on traditional vehicles suck in stop&go because you're scrubbing all your kinetic energy every time you stop, and that's proportional to the weight of your vehicle and any trailer. With an EV at least a portion of that ends up in the battery instead.

Though I agree - the common case would be to drop the trailer as soon as practical once you get into town, before doing 'lots' of city driving.

Theft could be an issue, but as you say, there are ways to secure things.

Why do arrest records have to be public?

Would you like them to be not public?
"No, we have no idea where your hubby Joe Smith is. We haven't arrested him"
'But he was seen in the back of your patrol car!'
"Nope, sorry lady"

Who do we root for? Prenda, FBI, or PirateBay.

Or it's almost like the GP is pointing out that the behavior he mentions was (and still is) completely benign, and neither he nor the people around him are any the worse for it.

Everyone has the right to express their disgust with you...

Yes. Absolutely.

...and take whatever measures they like in response.

No. Not even close.

the trolls keep telling us that there is "no right to be offended"

Well, perhaps, but I've never run into it. What I have run into, and said myself, is that "there is no right to not be offended."

The version you quote is ridiculous. The version I give you is profoundly defensible.

No, they don't. When everybody involved knows that they're looking at the spurious output of a young image recognition process, apologies don't, and don't need to happen.

To cite one example, ACORN staffer Clifton Mitchell was arrested and convicted (and did time) for creating fictional voters through thousands of bogus voter registrations. ACORN as an entity was fined $25k for its supervisory role in just his conduct alone. The entire organization dissolved itself while it was undergoing investigation for identical behavior in multiple states.

And this is why we have 'Lock out Tag Out' procedures. If the suit took his lock off, no wonder he got a good settlement.

And LOTO is a lot older than a decade.

Unlikely in Germany. As has been noted elsewhere, they tend to be obsessive rule followers.

That being said, disregard of such could be part of what's helping it to national and world news. Because it's so unusual.

Investigation still ongoing, yada yada, it's happened in the past that in such cases they deliberately bypassed the interlocks because they thought they knew better.

If you're 'loading them up on a trailer' to take to an emergency site, you're better off just taking cage-style generators. The stores, nursing homes, and such should already have them. It's one of the reasons I'm against anti-gouging laws. If a store spends the money to have generation systems so it can stay in business even with the power outage, it should be able to raise it's prices to cover the generators*, overtime/hazard pay for employees, etc...

It's about a $3k option. So no, it's not going to be on the cheapest trailers, but it's not 'that' expensive. Especially if U-haul figures out that it saves them money.

Then you get systems like the ford auto-backup. Which IS a vehicle mounted option.

I'm not comparing people traveling to U-Haul. I'm saying that I see the most common trailer case to be that the trailer is rented, the car is owned, because the people are using the trailer for 1-2% of their driving needs, and don't need the trailer around taking up space and still requiring maintenance when they don't need it.

If they're such an edge case like you, that they'd more or less constantly have the trailer on their vehicle, it's time to ditch the trailer and just buy a hybrid in the first place. Do not mistake me for a 'single solution' type of person, though I will get into the 'weeds' when concentrating on a single topic. Once you remove the people who never go that far(I used to drive from ND to NE to visit my parents. Now that the trip would be from AK to FL, I fly), those that do it relaxed enough that supercharger stations would keep up with them(my parents), those that do it constantly enough that they just buy a hybrid in the first place, etc... There's not a lot of trailers left.

I pondered it myself, but kept hitting a wall at the steering issue. Except for backing, a trailer changing steering less than hanging the weight off the vehicle. Plus, I got 600 pounds by looking up the weight of a 22kW generator. Add in fuel, wiring, etc...

So you're looking at needing a way to lift said attachment to place onto the vehicle - which would not be easy, and moving it around without wheels is a pain. I can move my much larger trailer by hand if necessary when it's unloaded, 600 pounds on wheels is relatively easy.

Some early hybrid designs were to feature a removable motor/secondary battery/storage area, but you run into weight/storage issues there - do you want a motor taking up your trunk space when you're going on a long trip?

As for an example trailer consider this article about one in development. 22kW - right on the money! Barely visible out the rear-view mirror, but yes, wider than I expected.

*which, even discounting purchase costs, fuel costs for the electricity to run the store are going to be substantially higher during the outage.

Uh... three, sir.

Really. What sort of job do you have that didn't involve showing ID in order to submit the required federal tax forms as you were hired? What sort of paycheck are you getting that doesn't involve you using an ID in order to open a bank account or cash a check? Please be specific about the people who are working full time, so hard, that not once in their entire life can they be bothered to get a form of ID. And, out of curiosity, how on earth did they find time to go register to vote, or find time TO vote? You're saying that these are people who will have their routine trips to the polling place, year after year throughout their entire lives, thwarted because they couldn't take five minutes to stop once for a free ID?

So, you're asserting that there are no elections that turn on a matter of just a handful of votes? You're actually going to say that the many local and state elections (which do things like put congressional and senate representatives into power) don't sometimes get decided by only dozens of votes? And then you're going to assert that papers like the Washington Post, who have reported on elections as recently as 2012 where in just one local review there were instances of local voters fraudulently voting twice ... that, what, the Washington Post is lying? Is that because you think the WP is part of some vast, racists, right-wing conspiracy, and manufactured the records that were produced by the election officials, showing the felony-offense fraud?

Your anxious need to trot out the ad hominem shows how much you're aware that you're BS-ing, so I don't really need to go on. You know you're looking to defend fraudulent practices that primarily favor the one party whose activists have been caught red-handed generating tens of thousands of bogus voter registrations. And you're complaining about the person who suggests it's a good ID to make fraud harder to commit. Your opening comments about how difficult it is for full time workers to stop and get an ID that the already have to have was hilarious, though, so thanks for the entertainment.