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i thought it was illegal to wrap it around the towball   should be somewhere else to fix it

I'm with Gray on this one - my Combi camp doesn't have one either. Do we need to have one? And where would it go if we did? My TT doesn't have brakes, I assume Gray's doesn't either. Are we legal without one?

Don't worry dotty, if the manufacturer didn't fit it, then the regulations mustn't mean they are mandatory on unbraked trailers, otherwise they would not have been able to sell them in the first place.

On an unbraked trailer, I have to say, I wouldn't be that comfy with a trailer flailing around behind me attached by a wire. It could cause more damage than letting it cast adrift on its own.

The idea of these cables was to apply the brake on the towed vehicle in the case of it becoming detached.

I dont have a braked trailer...nor brakeaway cable!!! What I do have is a length of chain fixed to the tow hitch...which I have always presumed was to act as a way of keeping car and trailer joined in the event of hitch failure...This(on my old car) was attached by a strong padlock to the plate holding the towball to the car(purpose made hole in plate I assumed was for this purpose!!) Glad I had this..cos last year the weld holding my hitchlock split up both sides..and while I made it home fully attached to my trailer..I dread to think what would have happend if the hitch had failed and this chain was not in place.......

Jelboy.

As in Jelboy's case better safe than sorry. Anytime I have towed an unbraked trailer I have always used a steel cable to attach it to the car just in case a hitch fails. In one of the first jobs i had I used to work on Motorway breakdowns and accidents and on a few occasions was left to clean up after such a failure on both braked and unbraked trailers.
Braked trailers are much more stable and do stop with the least amount of damage to both towcar and trailer and usually with little or no damage to other road vehicles either.
Unfortunately the same does not applied to an unbraked trailer which is why I advise the use of a chain or steel cable that will at least help to make a controlled stop. Been a long time since I worked out the weights and pressures involved but a trailer weighing around half a ton which becomes disconnected whilst travelling at approx 50mph will impact at around 5 times that speed, as you may imagine that is going to make one heck of a mess of whatever it hits. The one that always stands out in my mind is the compressor that came unattached from a building constructors lorry, When it stopped it had removed two cars and a van from the side of an A-road, the van was first hit and split like an egg, bothe cars where then struck and thankfully all were stationery and there was no resulting injuries.
The trailer hitch was the type that hooks through a bar on the tow hook, not the normal 50mm ball type that is more akin to caravan hitches. A chain on this trailer may not have caused less damage but it would have possible left less of a disaster area. (And I wouldn't have got payed so much overtime that night! )

As has already been pointed out there are correct ways and wrong ways to attach either type of cable.
The NTTA Website and the Caravan Club Factsheet.

I would also like to thank Tony Maris of Towbars & Trailers for the fact sheet on his website that clearly states the relevant laws regarding trailers and what is legal on our roads today.
This can be checked out by clicking on this link to Towbars & Trailers.
Brake Requirements

Further safety advice is also available on Tony Maris’s 's website under the Safe and Legal Towing Section worth having a read through all of the site as it does contain some great information that hopefully none of us will never have to rely on.
Mark is also a member of the NTTA and has written several articles on trailer safety including Towing behind a motorhome.

Hopefully this will help out all of us in understanding safety and trailers.