Loading your trailer the wrong way can wreck more than your cargo—it can wreck your trip. In this episode, we break down safe load placement using real-world demos from Weigh Safe and tips you can trust!
Trailers play a crucial role in hauling a wide range of materials, including landscaping supplies, recreational toys, and heavy equipment. They come in all shapes and sizes—flatbeds, dump trailers, enclosed haulers, car carriers, and more. One of the most versatile and popular types is the medium-sized flatbed trailer with one or two axles and a tailgate. It’s manageable, adaptable, and ideal for a wide range of tasks.
Safety begins with proper setup. That includes checking your towing vehicle’s receiver, matching the correct hitch ball size, verifying the hitch rating, ensuring a secure latch system, confirming all lights and signals function, and using safety chains, braking systems, and the right tie-down gear. Most importantly, it means loading your trailer correctly.
Let's look at load distribution — where you place your load dramatically affects your trailer's handling, braking, and sway tendency. We’re also excited to share some compelling test footage from our friends at Weigh Safe, who gave us full permission to use their real-world demonstrations of proper and improper loading. Their footage clearly shows the difference that correct loading makes.
The Role of Center of Gravity (CG) Whether you’re towing a single-axle or dual-axle trailer, you need to consider the trailer’s center of gravity (CG)—the point where its weight is evenly balanced. Most loads will naturally be front-biased, meaning more weight is ahead of the axles and toward the tongue. That’s a good thing—in moderation.
Proper trailer loading means: The majority of the load rests on the axles, not the tongue.
The tongue carries 10–15% of the total trailer weight.
The trailer tracks straight, brakes smoothly, and resists swaying.
Also, keep your load low. A lower center of gravity improves cornering stability and reduces the risk of tipping. Stack heavier items at the bottom, not at the top or in the rear.
Follow the 60/40 Rule
For general loading, aim for the 60/40 rule: place 60% of the weight in front of the axle(s) and 40% behind. A back-loaded trailer is inherently unstable and dangerous. It’s more likely to sway out of control when reacting to sharp maneuvers, gusty winds, or the pressure wave from passing trucks.
Load It, Then Lock It Down
Getting the weight in the right place is only half the job—it needs to stay there. Use proper load securement methods, and make sure your tie-down gear is in good shape. Ratchet straps are a go-to, but they can confuse first-timers. We’ve got you covered with two helpful how-to episodes:
Fine-Tuning Tongue Weight A load-sensing hitch like those from Weigh Safe can visually show how much tongue weight is being applied to your tow vehicle. If you don’t have one, use these quick visual checks:
1. Is the tongue slightly angled down toward the tow vehicle? Good. 2. Are your tire sidewalls evenly compressed? Uneven pressure = uneven loading. 3. On dual-axle trailers, are the rear tires flattened more than the front? If so, it's probably back-loaded. 4. If the tongue is sloping sharply downward and the hitch height is set correctly, the load may be too far forward.
Final Thoughts
Taking a few extra minutes to balance your load and secure it properly is one of the best safety decisions you can make. It’s not just about protecting your cargo—it’s about protecting yourself, your passengers, and everyone else on the road.
We’ve tested and trust the Weigh Safe adjustable, load-sensing hitch, and you can see our full review here:
Want one for your rig? Use promo code DFJAY for 10% off your Weigh Safe hitch!
JUST DO IT YOURSELF!
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
You can have a great tow vehicle and have great equipment, but if you don't load the
trailer the right way with the weight distributed correctly, you could be in for some big trouble.
Stay tuned and I'll show you what I mean.
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
I love having a trailer with my truck here.
It gets a lot of use and I try to turn down as many moving requests from my friends as
possible.
But I'll tell you what.
An important thing to know is how to put a load on the trailer correctly.
If it's not loaded in the right place, then you're going to end up with stability problems
when you're on the road and especially at higher speeds.
The higher the speed, you have a wind gust, a passing semi, something that really causes
you to have to swerve, and then the trailer becomes unstable if it's not loaded correctly.
Now we're going to use footage from our friends at WaySafe where they've put out probably
the best demonstrations that I've ever seen on this topic.
They have allowed us to use the footage, so thank you WaySafe, we really appreciate it.
That'll demonstrate much better than I could with anything that I can do here to show you
what happens.
All right, a good way to think about this is whatever trailer you have, this is a single
axle trailer, this is the center line right above the wheels where it's a fulcrum.
If I put weight towards the back of the trailer, it's going to lift the tongue.
If I move weight forward of this, it's going to put more weight on the tongue.
Now when you are towing, you're going to see in these videos here that a good rule of thumb
is to put 5-10% tongue weight forward of the center line here, and that'll give good stability.
If you want great stability, make it about 15%, and those 5% differences really show
up at higher speeds.
If you move more than 5% of weight behind the center line and lift the tongue weight,
at lower speeds it can kind of become difficult to control with the side gusts, some kind
of correction, something runs out on the road.
But at higher speeds it becomes unstable and on its own as you can see right in this video.
So the trick is to always distribute the weight.
So if you have two axles, you want to use the dividing line between right through the
middle, that's your center.
You want to move about 15% forward of that center line of the total weight, and that'll
put more weight on the front of the trailer and make it tow right in line with the direction
of the towing trailer.
Now another thing you can do is use WaySafe's proprietary dial that's right on the hitch
unit that tells you the amount of weight that you're putting onto the hitch to make sure
you're not overweighing it or diving it down.
And one other thing you should do is you can see here, we've set the adjustment height
on the tow hitch so that the trailer is towing level.
In other words, it's not being canted up to hook onto the truck, nor is it diving
down.
It's kept level and all that really helps with stability as well.
All right, to demonstrate this, I'm going to use me as the weight.
I'm about 200 pounds, and so we're going to use me as the weight.
And I want you to watch the dial what happens.
I'm on the center line right now, but I'm going to walk to the front of the trailer
and front load the trailer.
Watch the dial what happens here.
So if I'm up here, that's maximum weight of this 200 and something pounds right here.
But as I walk back towards the center line like this, the dial starts to change and kind
of goes neutral pretty close, just the weight of the trailer tongue and everything.
But watch what happens when I step to the back, and now I'm actually fulcruming over
the support right here and lifting the tongue.
This really causes a problem when you're going down the highway.
So let's suppose you put in a load of soil bags or concrete blocks or whatever, and you
put them here instead of over the center, you're really going to cause some problems.
Again, I want to thank our friends at WaySafe for the footage that allowed us to demonstrate
this whole thing.
If you'd like to check out WaySafe's product, we did another episode where we reviewed it.
Check it out right here.
And if you like what you see there, they've also provided me a promo code to pass on to
you.
You can join 10% off your order by using the promo code DFJ, J-A-Y, D-F-J-A-Y.
Hey, until the next time, this is Dirt Farmer Jay, enjoying some great equipment.
