A Question to Truckers About Dangerous Items to Transport

The only reason I can think of is (and I hauled a fair share of chips) for the person opinion is that a ftl of chips would be stacked to the ceiling. Heavier center of gravity. I think the last load I had was about 14,000 lbs.

Is it the most dangerous, heck no. Probably tampons or dynamite could be the most dangerous

Empy van or reefer trailers are dangerous in certain situations..wind, snow, or rain for example.

 

Your "professor" sounds like just another 4-wheeler pontificating about the industry while never having driven anything larger than his Volvo sedan.
As far as the "most dangerous", I can think of at least 2 loads (outside of oddball O/S stuff..) that you can see driven on the highways regularly:

The first is an un-baffled tanker, of which milk tankers comes to mind. These things are notorious for not only all the issues of "creeping center of gravity" on turns, but also for sever "slosh" when braking. As if that isn't bad enough, you see some of then running full-sized doubles on the NYS Thruway.

The second is something which used to be common, but not so much today; swinging beef. Full sides of beef hanging from a hook on a track on the ceiling. Nasty handling on that....

 

The only thing dangerous about potato chips is having the load rejected because all the bags burst when crossing over a mountain.

 

An odd one that dangerous to transport is Coca Cola or Pepsi. Not so much the cans/ bottles of soda. I hauled the liquid syrup they use to make the soda. It a hazardous material load that requires Corrosive placards on trailer.

The potato chips are just like any other light weight load in my opinion. A semi truck is designed to haul 80,000 lbs. A little load is more easily to blow over in high winds and take longer to stop because you have more tires on the truck then needed for such a lightweight loads. If you hit the brakes hard all the tires don’t have enough weight pushing them on the ground. They have a tendency to slide on top of the pavement. You have 45,000 lbs in a trailer that weigh will push the tire on the pavement and they will grip. A truck has all the tires needed to handle and stop 80,000 lbs.

It more difficult to stop and empty semi truck then a full loaded semi because when empty it doesn’t have enough weight keep all the tires needed gripping the pavement. So as a driver we should know this and keep more following distance and pay more attention to any high winds warning like you get out west in Wyoming.

 

Oh, man, I first heard THAT "old wife's tale" about 40 years ago! That along with the Domino's Pizza driver who took too long to deliver his load of dough racks and hit the top of the Eisenhower tunnel because his load rose too high.....

Just go away, please.