Driving Truck in the Wind! Need help!

Pull a tanker. You will hardly know there is any wind until you notice the Prime trucks leaning way over as you pass or you open the driver's door and it flings you across the parking lot.

 

You can only develop wind driving skills by driving in the wind. Nobody else has found a short-cut yet. Make sure your hand grip isn't tight. You only need to grip the wheel just hard enough so the wheel doesn't slide through your grip. I will usually have my thumb positioned behind one of the "spokes" of the wheel so I don't have to grip hard at all. Sometimes I will use the hand on the other side to grab the steering wheel. I'm all about finding multiple ways to do something. Changing up your sitting position and hand/arm positions many times per day is how you help avoid getting some chronic pain while driving.

 

In 20 years pulling vans I never thought about the wind acting on tankers until the first trip I took a tanker across WY going out to Oregon. I kept seeing all the 53 ft trailers leaning like mad to the left or right as they went down the road. Winds were steady and a direct crosswind all day long. I never noticed any problem until I stopped and popped the driver's door. It was like a catapult launch. Tankers have tons of advantages. They are 48 feet, not 53. There is NO TAIL SWING because the tandems are fixed at the very end of the trailer. They are at least 6 inches narrower than a 53 x 102 trailer and tankers sit a few feet further back on the kingpin so you can do U-turns or maneuver in much tighter spots. There were many times I was able to get a parking spot at the truck stop because the 53 ft "door swingers" couldn't get into the spot and I could. The main reason for tankers is the customers treat you like a human and not a diseased rat. It took me a while to stop flinching when a customer talked to me about a tanker load.

 

Ladieeeeeeeezzz aaaaand Gentle-meeeen....I do believe we have a winner!!!....

--Lual

 

A winner for what?

Everyone goes tanker?
Sure, that is a viable option...

 

Dude.....lighten up!

The implication there is simply.....ONE way to deal with high winds....is just GO TANKER!!!

Personally, I thought tscottme made a pretty compelling case in that post.

Did you really expect us tanker yankers to stay com-pletely silent on this one?

--Lual

 

Driving a tank has its advantages…….

 

Saw a couple of trucks blown over on 395 this morning south of Pearsonville. Yesterday the winds were gusting 70-80 MPH and CHP shut 395 down all the way to the Nevada border from Pearsonville. One of them was a Knight truck and he went over right where there was a culvert and a small ditch so he probably landed pretty hard. Hope he's OK.

 

No.
You tanker yankers always have a voice, and a valid one.
Even with the advantages, your job is much more dangerous than mine.

I was just pointing out the fact that simply going tanker is not a viable option for every driver, or for the industry.

And I don't need to lighten up.
Some common sense has to be realized, somewhere.