09/12/2026
Where you put the load matters more than how heavy it is.
U-Haul's safety team had a line for it in a NATM Trailer Safety Week webinar this year: "Don't pack your pillows first." Heavy goes in first, and heavy goes forward.
Their guidance is roughly 60% of the trailer's weight ahead of the axle and 40% behind it. Put too much behind the axle and the trailer starts steering the truck instead of the other way around.
One presenter compared it to swinging a weighted bat. The farther the weight sits from your hands, the harder it is to change direction. Same physics on a tongue.
In the webinar demo, moving the same cargo from the front of a trailer to the rear made the whole combination unstable without the driver touching the wheel.
Source: NATM Tracks magazine, September/October 2026.
