This is not an optical illusion

……More clues…..

 

Indeed it does. Apparently I wasn’t the first one to put a max gross load in the center of that old trailer with it all stretched out. Eventually it wore that right side I-beam slap out and made the trailer sag on the right side under that kind of stress.

When the trailer sagged on that side, it forced the rear left corner to bend. As I steered around curves, it would flex back the other way. I was on my way from Memphis to Newberry, SC, the ride through the Smokies was a sight to behold.


Four wheeler traffic would come up behind me, see that trailer swaying and get around me real quick. They were all taking cell phone camera photos as they passed. No doubt I was trending on Facebook that day.

 

No, that’s why I had them all the way back. But as I said, I didn’t really know any better when I had them center the load.

 

A couple of years later I was somewhere in Ohio getting loaded with a variety of flat steel and small coils on skids. This place was anal about approving the way the load was placed on your deck, secured and tarped. The old man there supervising fought with me for the longest time wanting to place it in the center. He insisted he’d driven a trailer like mine for many years and assured me he knew what he was doing. But it’s my truck and my decision. I wouldn’t accept the load that way. I got it skewed forward.

After I had it all secured and tarped I showed him ( and 2 or 3 of his loaders those pictures on my phone. Needless to say, the old man had never seen anything like that and had no idea the phenomenon could happen.