Driving in high winds

Quite often windy but really have to watch for wind in wy and nv. More so than along i-40.

 

I mostly go to LA, and it's kind of exhausting driving most of the time....

 

You don't drive in high wind.

As a general rule, any time NOAA issues a high wind warning for the area you are in, it behooves you to find a truckstop and get into the middle of the row, not the ends for parking hopefully with the trailer pointing west or northwest into the wind. If it is a winterstorm, you would have it pointed south if possible. Hurricanes in particular.

Anything over 60 is enough to threaten any 18 wheeler with large surface areas. I noticed that they put areodynamic dams on the bottom of trailers now to save fuel. Personally I dislike them and would not want them for two reasons, It is enough of a sail as it is and your off road options are limited or ordinary high crown road, curves, switchback railroad crossing etc are all threats.

Bridges are the last places you want to be on. The last time I got caught on a high wind was a storm front came from the west during the summer of 1989. I was hauling a empty container with a R model mack from Ocean City Maryland to Port East in Baltimore downtown after a day delivering furnature.

There I was on the westbound span of the chesapeake bay bridge when the storm front that has been warned for severe thunderstorm with winds to match caught me at the highest point approx a bit more than half way across. where the bridge decking was grated with steel grate. The wind caught my rig and shoved all of it and me inside straight sideways against the railing which in those days were not much higher than the tires.

Fearing a 220 foot fall to my death, I had my driver's door open, a foot on the fuel tank and one hand pulling both of the red and yellow knobs on my way out the door to jump to the deck at about 20 mph while being pushed sideways against the railing. She came up on the right hand wheels and tires, stalled the engine out and just before I committed to the jump to the grated steel bridge deck she fell back down onto all the wheels and stayed put.

To this day I don't know why I was not flung out of the cab to the left when she came back down. Oncoming traffic included tour buses coming up with a horde of cars.

That I consider my second birthday. I would be dead that day one way or the other.

Lesson? Don't go into a storm, or try to beat one across a bridge or high mountain ground. get yourself a few hours sleep in a protected truckstop and wait the storm front out.

There you have it. I would encounter winds many times later over the years with the 18 wheeler and when I did it's usually sometimes running with a loaded 18 wheeler between me and the oncoming wind if I happened to be empty and was tired from wrestling with the wheel.

Some trucks in the day before computer total control were governed at 55 and when the wind would push on the front robbing you of the power on the tach, you downshift to get it back to high horse and above torque to stay there Then back to top gear, then downshift again on the next gust.

One of my more memorable situations was north of Lubbock on the highway to Armarillo. That day was a dryline to our west in NM resulting in a black sky with green at noon and a ferocious wind that would not quit. The problem was I was in a loaded covered wagon with cowhide from Garden city bound for eagle pass texas for export to mexico where the leather would be made into whatever Mexico wanted. (The lower quality hides got shipped out of the USA into Mex while we kept the good hides when the tanners got through processing them at the cattle slaughter house. Picking up cowhide in summer was not fun when you are covered in flies and walking in decaying green slime, guts and blood trying to get the tarp, sides and bungee cords tied on.

Anyhow. The covered wagon near Lubbock had to have 5 straps on each hook instead of the usual three with 4 to 6 extra straps over the top of the huge single peice canvas tarp that was threatening to blow completely off the rig and cause a wreck somewhere across the median I imagine. As far as looking for safe haven it was impossible. the land being flat. I spent a few hundred dollars out of my pocket for more straps out of a truckstop halfway there. Threw all of them across the top of the trailer.

I still have those straps in a small bag in one corner of my place for future use.

 

Biggest wind you will ever find is at the buffet counter! From both ends... sadly.

Mikeeee

 

Wind is the worst of all the elements on a drive hands down.

 

Have you never yet run across 4 wheelers in Chicago?

Check my you tube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxIMBqx3SJw62tqHhF3MJgg

Mikeeee

 

I haul hides outa Nebraska to Laredo weekly with my covered wagon ..pays well but yep they gamey smellin and it's a niche that isn't for the timid .

 

30 MPH winds isnt crap, you can do that on an empty trailer. If gust are 40-50 yeah you want to be atleast 30K. If you are 40k or over, don't worry about it. Your arms are sore at the end of the day.

 

I have worked with 2 drivers that have blow over.One was only going 25mph pulling into the i70 ts in Lawrence ks when he layed it on its side.When it feels like you can barely keep it in your lane say 60mph...drop it back to 50mph.The container guy with 80000 might not like it.Who cares...Go Around! Also if you have a low steer tire 80psi or so it'll intensify you having to babysit the wheel.Low tires,rutty road and winds bad combination.Resist the urge to "yank the steering" back and forth this just makes it worse.You gotta kind of accept the feeling of loss of control for a second and follow up with a gradual return of the wheel.Any sudden movement of the wheel is amplified by 80 feet.If this makes any sense?