Drive Thru It Or Shut It Down?

Just another day in paradise.

 

That doesn't look very fun. I wouldn't really want to stop or keep going.

 

More common than you think out there...
It can be just fine from Calgary to within 10 miles of where 2 and 3 meet. Then it's windy as all hell and iced over. You don't have an option to stop. Earlier on...sunny and light wind behind you.
I like to take 2 south to 3 rather than jump over to 22.

It happens...

 

Those skirts did not help.

Save a few dollars fuel they said. Flopsie in the wind very easy peasy to total the whole #### truck and load.

Im telling you those stupid stupid freaking skirts on them trailers are NOT worth it.

Driver did one thing wrong. Going out into a high wind warned area in the beginning.

What he did do is stop. And consider the problem. I see the ground is frozen and that the wind is constant strength right to left. I would have pointed into it with a slight upslope to help getting back onto the interstate when the winds die down after a while.

It conflicts with my own experience when you are very cold with winds like that. You point the trailer into it to protect your engine's heat output to stay alive.

I don't know.

Whatever I write will be contested in one way or the other. That driver should not have gone out. HOWEVER in redemption he did display a willingness to reduce loading on his rig by actually stopping to think things over. But that stupid skirt has to go. It's a liability here.

 

Side skirt makes little to no difference in how the wind will or won't pick up a trailer... the weight of the unit is the biggest factor.
Yes I understand if you're in a hurricane if you open the house windows you lesson the resistance...
It's also known if you lower everything the wind is forced to go over top. So which engineering argument wins?
Side skirts will save you .25 to .4 mpg (us gallons) depending how far up your trailer tandems are. That's a measurable roi unlike a lot of other things sold as fuel saving technology but in reality is just snake oil. Do they look kinda dumb? That's another debate.

If you say "the driver should never have left out" you've never been to Alberta in the winter. With that thought process you might as well do all your trucking there from June to September. Places to stop are few and far between and the weather can and often does change in the time you leave out before the time you get to the next town.

 

A lot of people from lower latitudes don't understand how the wind and blowing snow will glaze a road even on a sunny day .
I 94 from from Barnesville mn into Fargo is very prone to it .
Grab the shoulder and pray .

 

People only think Wyoming is windy because they've never been to Pincher Creek.

 

That's an easy part of 94
My nemesis is Montana's part of 94
Nobody around
Windy
Some good hills and curves
Need the A game there

Ran it all winter..... for the sole reason I didn't want more states than necessary on my ifta at quarter end lol

 

Lots of areas prone to that ...29 from Fargo to Winnipeg brings back memories too.