"The trailer started whipping..."

We saw one flipped on Route 80 in Delaware Water Gap/East Stroudsburg. OlderF250 not one exit from where they were just camping. Straight highway, and the truck swayed so bad that it flipped.

loulou57 wrote:

Do sway bars help?

Yes and no... that is a matter of opinion.

Sway bars do work to reduce the amount of sway that can occur. I disagree with the use of sway bars because I feel they have two very serious weaknesses...

1) Allows improper loading of trailer and hides the resultant sway and therefore drivers are unaware that their tongue weight is too low

2) Sway is controlled up to a certain threshold, then the sway overpowers the bar and 'wham' a high speed tail-wagging of the trailer occurs.

Do they physically work below the threshold... absolutely.

Would I ever use one... not a chance.



Once I feel sway without the bars two things happen....

First) I use my brake control manual lever to apply slight brake force to the trailer only, pulling tension between my truck and trailer until the sway stops

Second) I measure my tongue weight and fiqure out what happened?

It is hard to believe nobody was hurt.

The article said it was a chevy silverado pulling a 30ft trailer.
We don't know what went wrong we can only guess. However, we have a 27ft and pull with an Avalanche. The dealer put on one sway bar. The only time we ever swayed was when a big rig passed us on a bend. It wasn't enough to scare us off towing but hubby did get another sway bar. We have not had an issue of swaying since that, even with the boat behind. Do sway bars help?

Attempted to pass a big rig. So I would guess the big rig was doing the speed limit. I would guess the limit is 55 or 70 depending on the type of road. I seem to read that most trailer tires are rated at 60 to 65 mph. I bet he's slows down, if she let's him ever get another rig.

This one happened a few months ago in the rim country of Arizona.






They look better when they are right side up.

A bad day trailering for sure. Could have been worse........

Scary. Hope no one was hurt. We had a situation that I'd bet also meant no sway on his hitch....just going across an overpass on I-40, no wet road, but it had been really, really windy all day. Just swung that thing around 180 degrees and turned it over into the median. Some folks were helping him out of his truck as we got there. Gives you goose bumps to even think about it.

***Just saw the picture and article you added.....speed is not a good thing. They were lucky.*****

The_Barbarian wrote:
My wife's statement: "OMG, I bet they had did not have sway control bars." As we drove by, I could not tell either way.

Taft Midway Driller

I wouldn't have sway control bars if you paid for them. Mine came with one bar, but I gave it away the first time out.

Brake controller with manual (and accessible) lever is all I need.