[slowmover]

It'd help if the original post was read.

There are times when the load requires a trailer, and choosing the correct trailer for tow vehicle and load will make a difference for both safety and economy. There are times when the tow vehicle could carry the load, but it would not be in the interest of safety to do so. The fuel penalty can be minimized, and the attendant safety considerations not compromised. There are cases one can make that the trailer, carefully chosen, rigged and equipped will use less fuel in tow than heavily loading the tow vehicle driven solo. They might be rare yet they exist. I've done it.

The assumption that towing is automatically the wrong choice when fuel economy is a prime consideration has to be weighed against alternatives; especially if the alternatives just shift the burden to another. Most vehicles are capable of quite a bit, but the details must be attended to for proper performance.

I, too, have driven OTR. And heavily loaded my pickup. And used trailers to make life easier. And I can go on, refute, offer counterexample and all the rest. Whoopee. Thought maybe someone might also read that Tip and come away with the same impression: tow=bad. It isn't. There is more to it than I wrote, and I see that none of the responses so far understand how to make the tow vehicle/trailer their most efficient and not compromise safety. I'm not the one making poor assumptions, here.