What is tail swing and why is it a problem?

21 years RETIRED !!! You DA Man

 

Yeah, what a 100th birthday party that was, felt I'd had enough by then.

 

MS Carriers? Man, you dodged a bullet with THAT one.....

 

Yes, I heard, they were advertising in the UK at the time so made me a bit suspicious. Just felt like a change, a new continent to tick off the bucket list. Most of my mates who baled out, went to Canada, they were always searching, but I thought it might be a bit chilly for me.

 

FWIW, Canada can get cold; I used to do Eastern Canada, and one winter in Quebec it was -40°, with a good 30 mph wind. At those temps, you have to keep fuel treatment onboard, have a good hand mallet to unfreeze frozen brake drums, and fill your washer reservoir with the -60°C fluid they sell at Canadian Tire. Heavy snow is also something you'll experience 4-5 months out of the year. But then, working for Challenger or Manitoulin would be about the equivalent of working for MS Carriers. There are a lot of foreign drivers in Canada, but most of them are from the Indian subcontinent. If you drive in places in central Canada, like Alberta, you'll end up pulling long doubles (2 separate 48' or 53' trailers with a 2-axle dolly). Even in the east, 60T and 60' B-train doubles are common.

 

When I was driving a sleeper truck, I always watched my U-turn radius, especially with other equipment around.

Driving a full size twin screw day cab and 48’ trailer with a lift gate I still do.
Some places where I’m told i can pull in and swing around, I’ll still back in just because I DON’T want to hit anything.

I’ve seen plenty of rookies pulling a split axle flat bed make the mistake of trying to make a right u-turn with one of those, it didn’t end well for the tires.

 

When I pulled logs the general rule was not more than 14 foot of tail swing. I hauled a load that was a whole lot more than that once, (after all who wants to cut perfectly good logs shorter and waste all that wood), if it gets long enough the trailer is balanced well enough it makes driving the thing totally awful. Not to mention a 25 foot tail swing will keep you out of a truckstop completely.

 

There was a terrific Chinese dashcam video a couple years ago showing a driver with about a 100' pipe on a pole trailer with about 30' of tail swing. He turned a right, and took out a car 3 lanes over to his left, going the opposite direction, then scraped the pipe on the crown of the road when it bottomed out....

 

Tail swing hmm thought that was the way some folks walk........

 

The honkytonk badonkadonk!