Big brains only need respond...

I was on I-80. The wind was frequently at 90 degrees to the truck. I watch the wind socks on the side of the road. The trash, grass, etc as well.

If you are carrying a heavy load with a moderate or low center of gravity, wind at 60 miles per hour will simply not turn you over unless you do something to make it happen.

Many people overreact when they feel their seat move, or their tires break loose from the roadway. That caused loss of control.

Thing is that when the wind rocks you and you feel the cab move, the wheels of your truck are almost always far more stable than you feel. That's because the cab is on shocks, and not connected to the rest of the truck by load bearing steel.

My cab wobbled a bit a few times. The back of my trailer waved a fraction every now and then, but I didn't make it worse by trying to correct my steering based on bad data.

If I had been under 20k in the box I probably would have stopped. The warning was for light, high profile vehicles.

I was a heavy, high profile vehicle.

 

Another nice thing about tankers.

I’ll follow a van getting blown all over and I don’t get 1/4 of what he’s dealing with.

I’m always scared my visor is gonna get ripped off once it’s at 50+ that thing takes a beating.

 

There's a lot to be said for having experience at the helm of a sailboat on a hard reach. The feeling is the same. You don't over react when the sail gets pushed down toward the water and you are standing on the gunwale getting your toes wet. Over reacting can sink a sailboat with two tons of lead in the keel in a hurry. You either ease into the wind or luff the sails or both.

In a truck you don't yank the steering wheel. You HOLD YOUR LINE if you are getting pushed. Wait for the gust to ease off to bring it back to your preferred track.

 

Yup.
Keep going with that kind of thinking.

It will get you turned over or killed in the long run.

 

Understanding physics helps when you are making decisions about driving conditions.

 

Maybe that's because blown over trailers are typically light or empty, whereas trailers with tandems back are typically heavy? Plus it makes sense that the lightest part of the vehicle will be the first to go. What makes less sense to me is trying to fix this problem by making the lightest part of the vehicle lighter, which is what sliding the tandems back would do. But maybe there's some sort of center-of-gravity improvement beyond my understanding, making the lightest part of the vehicle so light that it cannot affect the rest of the truck. I'm not claiming to be a physics expert.

I did drive back and forth across Wyoming for over a year with a west coast cross country reefer company. Did Cheyenne to SLC multiple times thru 50-60+ mph crosswind, always at 74k+. The company would shut us down individually if we weren't heavy, and let us shut ourselves down no-questions-asked if we felt like it, which I did once due to ice. Drove for hours on end thru Wyoming winter while tilted at a kooky angle from the crosswind. Not something I would choose to do for a hobby, but gave me all the proof I need that heavies hold the road much better.

 

With the tandems forward on a dry van or reefer the wind has additional leverage behind the tandems. When I got into hard, broadside winds with a light trailer I would try to find a place to park and slide the tandems all the way back. It helps stabilize the trailer.

 

He is right, I'm not arguing that, I regularly do it myself, but, I've on more than a few occasions still had my trailer try and pass me or take me off road. Last March, heading up 71 from Kimball to Scottsbluff, tandems back still wasn't enough with a 53' container it almost laid me over. Had a box van running block for me going into Scottsbluff, when he backed off to get over for the cutoff, the wind caught my trailer and lift the tandems almost 12" off the ground. All I could do was jam on the brakes and crank the wheel hard right to keep it upright.