Why is it easier to tow rather than push a trailer?

You cannot control the wheels on the trailer. If it is in front, being pushed, you would be unable to steer.

With it behind, your steering controls the front wheels of your vehicle which gives direction to the vehicle and the trailer.

Seeing around the trailer, as Mensan said, would also be a factor.

Trailer wheels are crazy. If you drag them they obey, if you let them lead, you crash.

When towing, you are in FRONT of the towed vehicle, and can better see exactly where you are going.

+5

When you are pushing a trailer the load applied on the truck from the trailer is now being applied in the front of the truck rather than the back. Therefore there is now more weight on the front tires than there is on the back (Think center of gravity of the truck). Since there is now substantially less load on top of the back tires they experience much less friction while the front tires will experience more friction.

Now think of the normal operation of towing a trailer

When a loaded trailer is slid onto the hitch of truck there is now a large load being applied directly on the hitch. That load gets carried down to the back tires.. the tires then press against the ground and the ground pushes back just as hard against the tires. This force is called the Normal Force.

Frictional force is proportional the the normal force pushing up on the tires. (Ff = mu*N .. Frictional Force = Coeffecient of Friction * Normal Force)

So in answer to your question the front tires of the truck should experience more friction (traction) while the back tires will have a much harder time gripping the pavement due to the loss of friction. The back tires of course is where all the power from the drivetrain is.. unless of course it's a FWD vehicle or 4 wheel drive is engaged.


I hope you can make some sense of this.

check out this wiki.. the free body diagram of the box(Picture of the box with arrows on it) will give you a graphical idea of how Forces such as weight cause friction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friction

I dont think anyone understands my question. I dont mean easier to steer or control, i mean PHYSICALLY easier to tow than push. I drove trucks and trailers for many years and on some occasions, in a really tight spot, sometimes we pushed the trailers with a specially fitted ring feeder on the front of the truck. The truck would always spin the drivers and generaly make hard work of it, but TOW the same trailer and load without any trouble. I think perhaps an engineer or a physics teacher would be able to answer my question.
Thanks anyway.

You can't steer it if you are pushing

Steering is the key, seeing where you are going is the key.