With Halloween approaching fast, you are probably seeing more and more front yards decorated with a gauntlet of spooky spider webs, tombstones and many other freaky furnishings waiting for their chance to creep out trick-or-treaters as they make a mad dash for the pot of candy gold at the home’s door. But there are much scarier situations that you can see while driving down the road any time of the year.
One of these situations is a truck pulling a trailer that, as a result of improper loading, has begun to sway violently from side to side, as if trying to escape the grasp of the trailer hitch. The worst case scenario, often terrifying for the truck driver and other motorists, involves the trailer swaying across the double yellows and into the path of oncoming traffic. Just the thought of this can send a chill down the spine of many experienced professional drivers!
Swaying is not limited to one type of trailer, it may be a dove tail trailer or even a cargo trailer! Luckily, major truck manufacturers such as Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet have begun to take measures to help reduce trailer sway. This can be done by using the truck’s computers to sense the sway and electronically apply the truck’s brakes on just one side of the truck at a time to neutralize swaying.
Most recently, Ford has introduced a trailer sway control system on the 2011 Super Duty that takes this technique above and beyond what has been done before by using the electronic brake control on the trailer it is towing. By controlling both the brakes on the truck and the trailer, the computer can drastically reduce the amount of swaying. By 2012, most trucks will have this technology (or a variant of it) according to a federal law that will require all truck (and car!) manufacturers to make stability control standard.