Empty trailers take longer to STOP

i really think the cali handbook on brakes was writen before air suspension,abs,limiting valves were common on all vehicles
is there a write up on resetting your wigwags as well?

 

Its a good discussion and illustrates the old school vs the new school practices and training materials.

Equipment has improved over the past 20 years (the amount of time I have been driving a CMV) and so have the teaching methods. The trucks today are more powerful as well as more comfortable and filled with technological advances. That said it still requires a good deal of study, skill and practice to familiarize ourselves with the regs and how they apply to the equipment of today.

Currently the majority of trucks use brake drums even though there is proof that disk brakes are superior. Why hasn't our industry adapted to this technological improvement?

This alone would get rid of brake fade and shorten stopping distances.

 

I have yet to see a truck driver get out with a tape measurer. No I wasn't name calling. I was just stretching the fact the DOT doesn't make up stuff in the manuals. Alot of testing by trained individuals go into writing that stuff.

Not everyone can drive, but it's not rocket science either. Any person can come up with their own thoughts and that's the way it is. Either at 5 years experience or when they get to 40 years, they are going to still think the same way. Most won't brake hard enough in fear of damaging their freight. Get out there and lock em down and take a tape measurer with you. Then you will see.

 

And they're right.

 

Thank you for calling me Dear.....

 

There have been times in my transfer that I have needed to apply immediate brake-age to avoid a situation, both loaded & empty. The empty truck and trailer stopped just fine, maybe not faster (maybe, but at least same time), but it gave me a much better feeling than hitting the brakes loaded at 55....

 

My hat is off to your Sir. I would like to do my own test and I should have before I retired. This is why. We drove super tankers that were 85 feet long and ran super singles on our trailers. On the way back to the tank farm we are empty and it was a bear to stop fast without the brakes locking up. That's just the nature with an empty tanker. I'm sure you've seen them bounce like crazy and make alot of noise when there are empty. Anyone with a trained eye can spot a loaded tanker just by the ride. So yes at that time an empty trailer would take longer to stop. THEN they came out with the new ABS. We couldn't lock the brakes if we had to. So in todays world, if the ABS are working right, an empty would take longer to stop but I bet it would be very near a loaded trailer.

Book smarts only get you so far and what takes a good professional is to know when the book just doesn't match the real world and the books need to be updated. Hell, my CDL test had me yielding to an Ice Cream Truck. Their logic was an ice cream truck is going to have kids around it. Sure but what if it's driving down the interstate? And besides that, what would I be doing with a CMV in an area where ice cream trucks are selling to kids?

I's like to see some knew test run.