Above all, glad you made it out unharmed.

Future reference for anyone planning to use a tow dolly:

1. If in doubt, call a professional tow truck. It may seem expensive at first, but amazingly cheap compared to possible medical/legal/repair bills for a simple "oops". Then there is always the "death" bill. Tow trucks are CHEAP. Murphy's law doesn't make appointments or work on schedules.

2. If you refuse to heed rule #1 and must continue to tow a vehicle on your own, DON'T use a tow dolly. Put the vehicle to be towed onto a trailer that is rated to carry the weight of the towed vehicle. In park, parking brake applied, strapped/chained down, and facing forward, it becomes a stable load on the trailer. Ensure your towing vehicle and hitch is rated for the load. Pulling a trailer changes the driving characteristics of any vehicle. Keep that in mind.

3. O.k., you are going to use the tow dolly anyways. You decided that "what if", well, won't.

a. Vehicle to be towed should have the steering wheels on the dolly. Steering geometry is designed to go forward. No vehicle to my knowledge has ever been designed to be stable at highway speeds in reverse.

b. The tow dolly uses the suspension of the vehicle being towed to keep it's wheels in contact with the road's surface. If you can avoid it, don't bind down the chassis to the dolly, use tire straps/chains. Let the towed vehicle's suspension do it's job.

c. If you have to disconnect the drive shaft, do so. A few minutes under the vehicle is cheap insurance. Disconnect the shaft from the rear end yoke and secure to the chassis, or remove completely. Don't forget to remove universal joint (or in this case, flex disc) and simply run some tape around the universal joint to keep the caps and bearings in place.

Some folks sing the praises of tow dollys, how safe and easy and fool proof they are, and how they have towed ten ton dump trucks from coast to coast on them using a 1500lb VW as the tow vehicle, whatever floats your boat. I've done some miraculously idiotic things myself and been lucky enough to tell the tale. But the fact is sometimes common sense isn't enough. Remember Murphy's law? It will bite you.

I have spent many years behind the wheel as a professional tow operator. Even with the proper professional equipment, towing a car backwards can be disasterous. I've lost one before, and seen many others lost by fellow operators, one resulting in fatality to oncoming traffic.

Folks, don't tow things backwards. Always refer to rule #1.

-=voice of gloom and doom, signing off=-