Truck trailer vs. tractor trailer

Which is the safest configuration, a truck and trailer combination or a tractor trailer combination? I am talking big rigs. Many years ago, the gentleman who taught me to drive claimed that a truck trailer configuration was safer in its handling characteristics than a semi tractor trailer combo. The semi tractor trailer was favored for ease of switching trailers as opposed to loading each truck individually. Your thoughts?

There is no way that a bumper hitch is anywhere near as safe as a 5th wheel.

I vote for the semi trailer being safer. If you have ever pulled a bumper trailer. Then pulled a goose neck with the same load. No comparison. Getting the hitch point in front of the rear axle is the difference

I think if you look at what is on the road today you will get your answer. Has to be a reason we ended up with Tractor/semi trailers Instead of trucks and wagons..

The 5th wheel set up is the only one where you can have passengers in the trailer your pulling and be legal. Say you have a camper that is bumper hitch you cannot have a person in it. If you have one that is goose neck you cannot have a person in it but if you have a 5th wheel it is legal to have people riding in it on the road so which one is the safer one?? The 5th wheel is one where you can almost have a limitless load simply by having more axles under the tractor and the trailer.
It is common to have a goose neck or bumper hitch trailer come free so that is why safety chains are needed to be legal but a 5th wheel does not need safety chain to be legal

I think they are both safe and both unsafe. 99.9% of avoidable hazards are caused by the owner/ operator. But the applies to anything in the world. I've been extra safe and had accidents happen and I've been carefree and down right stupid and nothing bad has happened on things. That being said I have to side with the 5th wheel. But a turn over gooseneck or hiding in a flatbed is so much nicer for a truck that is going to do more that pull a trailer. The bumper pull is great for our utillity bed trucks and dump trucks. Our dump truck would be terrible if you couldn't haul a piece of equipment to the job with you

Old you better check laws for states your going through because some states state nobody rides in trailer fifth wheel or not .

Yeah laws in each state may or may not allow for riders. Its common place for goose neck trailers to come loose or unhooked???????????????
What color is the sun in your world?

On a single axle semi tractor pin sets over center of rear axle. All our tandems with fixed fifth wheels were fixed between the drive axles. Tandems with slider would only slide from center of front axle to center of rear axle and anything in between.

Stuart your comments are well taken. However your last sentence seems a little rude.

I've never had a gooseneck come loose but I've seen a couple. The only way they can is if it wasn't hooked properly or something is broken, the same goes with a bumper hitch. I've seen several 5th wheel hitches come loose but in every case there it was also operator error or worn out.
IMO both are safe and have their advantages if used properly.

I would venture to say if it is loaded right with weight properly distributed,and driven sanely there is not much difference. Now if you look at those car haulers. Not the pickup with a wedge trailer on it but the old original car haulers their fifth wheel is down behind the frame near where the tail lights ware. So does that make it safer just because it is a fifth wheel.
As for the comment about the gooseneck being less safe than a fifth wheel. I would venture to say they are more likely to be forgotten about the latching, after it has been set down over the ball. Or the ball set down in to the socket. So the need for the safety chains. Where as the fifth wheel latches as you connect them up. Still a need to be pulled gently on to check that it latched.
The insane part is the pins on these fifth wheel pins for campers and such are the same or very close to it as a semi has. Seems like it would not need nearly the same size for a camper as the semi. then again the pin is the same size for a gravel train as for a van box trailer another scary thought. One is 80,000 the other 160,000 twice the weight.

Semi vs. truck with full trailer, semi wins for safety. Just because of reverse. Hard enough to find drivers that can back a semi let alone a wagon.

Talking big rigs, semi's have the best and safest hitch over a truck and trailer's pintle hitch setup.
Pintle hitch and ring are half the size of a semi's 5th wheel pin, pintle hitch requires safety chains should the hitch fail, due to the slack in a pintle hitch it has a rougher jerky ride over a 5th wheel.

Truck trailer combo does have advantages.
Trailer trails the truck better with less chance of dropping the trailers wheels off the road in tight turns, you can unhook the trailer and still use to truck for small jobs or in tight locations where a semi can't go.

Our local mill uses both depending on the job, semi's haul all of the lumber and waste wood from the mill and use a truck with out a trailer for small local deliveries.
Truck trailer combos are used for hauling logs from the woods with occasional use of semi's depending on roads traveled and yarding room to maneuver semi's in.

Here logs are cut to length in the woods, in areas where tree length is hauled a semi would be needed.

Semi is safer. It's not so much about the hitch type but where the hitch is located. With a semi the attachment point is straddling the drives, distributing weight on the drives and forward as needed with the slider. Full trailer is attached at the rear... and that makes it a lot easier for the tail to wag the dog if it's not loaded just right.
I would also argue that a fifth wheel is marginally safer than your average pintle or ball setup...

Rod

Ah but many times if say the tags are from Missouri and it legal in MO they can in fact ride in other states but yes laws do varies. But in more the 50% in a 5th wheel set up people can ride in the trailer. Of course also laws change over the years

In reference to big rigs, not bumper pulls.
I started out driving a truck trailer, a tandem axle kenworth with a 22' bed pulling a 35' IIRC pintle pull trailer, hauling small bales you could haul more than a set of doubles, until the laws changed.

Your first statement is true unless it is different. I spent over 40 years in the transport business. Almost every single axle tractor I have seen is set up with the pin 9-12 inches forward of the axle center. Reason being to throw some weight onto the steering. If the pin is directly over the axle, pulling force tends to lift some weight off the steering. Can get rather snaky on slick roads.
Same theory applies to tandem tractors, but not so much. Tandem tractors are set up to pull heavier, so have larger (heavier) engines, larger fuel tanks, & often a sleeper, so already heavier on the steering.
I liked my pin set at 3 inches forward of tandem center. With that model tractor, road ready, full of fuel,double bunk sleeper, me in the seat & my personal gear on board, when I scaled 34000 on trailer, 34000 on drives I had 11800 on steering, just right.
In the tractor-trailer or truck-trailer debate, it depends on the type of use. At one feed mill I delivered to often, they had tandem box trucks pulling a 16 foot pup when delivering to their dealer elevators/feed stores. After the first 1 or 2 stops, driver would let the empty pup sit, finish route with truck, then pick up the pup on return. Beat the heck out of unhooking the pup at each following stop, or opening door in nose of pup & setting bridge ramp from pup to lead truck for unloading. If it was a circular route instead of a straight out/back route, they couldn't let the pup sit. Then they discovered that by switching to tractor -trailer that when empty at end of route, they could pick up grain or other mill supplies on the return trip.

Willie

On the pin location affecting steering: Neighbor buys a 56 Chevy (6 wheel single axle) grain truck a decade ago. Has the regular sized grain box on it but the wheelbase is short putting the rear axle pretty much in the center of the box, rather than about one third from the rear of the box which puts weight on the fronts as you said.

Roads here are horrible due to clay soil shrinking and swelling. That thing was almost impossible to keep on a 2 lane farm to market road with a load. Yes there is something to weight on the fronts.

I currently run truck trailer for a living. I used to run Semi's. I would say that they are pretty equal except that with that extra joint, it makes it easier to "crack the whip" when you jerk the steering wheel (something we all know we aren't supposed to do in either configuration).
Tim in OR

(quoted from post at 08:20:05 04/12/17) Ah but many times if say the tags are from Missouri and it legal in MO they can in fact ride in other states but yes laws do varies. But in more the 50% in a 5th wheel set up people can ride in the trailer. Of course also laws change over the years

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I don't know how anyone would want to ride in the trailer anyways legal or not.

If you've seen what campers are made of and what happens to one in a wreck "human cannonball" is a plausible reality to a passenger riding in a aluminum sided 2x3 walled box.