major pileup I44 rolla, mo.

[QUOTE="semi" retired;4488484]Man, 11 pages already. Isn't there a "new" pileup we can talk about?[/QUOTE]
If there isn't a "new pileup" right now there soon will be.

 

I see a Prime truck there... so can't blame it on them all going fast lol.

 

I can't believe people are still trying to make a thing out if this. I guess they're so bored sitting around the truckstop waiting on freight they have to invent #### to ##### about.

its like in high school when something bogus happens during football season and then a week before school lets out In the summer there are doofuses still whining about it.

 

This thread is piling up

 

Pack riding Rules!

 

To be honest, the few times I see 2, 3 or more trucks running together pretty close, it's fast owner-operator trucks with a small outfit, like bull haulers or frac sand haulers, or aggregate haulers, and the like. When is the last time you saw 2 or more large fleet trucks run close together? You don't. They're all running to slow to run in any pack and they just don't tend to congregate together, anyway.

 

That's true, STexan, it probably has something to do with the way they are paid, at least dump trucks. Just yesterday in Wisconsin, a dump truck cremated several 4 wheelers, and I knew exactly what happened. These guys are getting paid by the load, it was middle of the afternoon, this driver was under pressure to get "one more load" and had the hammer down, empty, traffic slowed and he(or she) couldn't stop. I've hauled a dump wagon, and always took my time, and usually got one less load than everybody else, and got a lot of pressure from my boss, "why do you get one less load than everybody else"? I quit that racket just for those reasons.

 

I see this to but on the one hand they are normally drivers that know the ones around them and you learn their habits, tend to be in communication with eachother dont really make it right just saying I don't remember the last time i seen those type guys in all tangled up. Its when seems more when running in a pack of drivers that dont know eachother and dont talk to one another.

 

When I first drove in the late 70's it was normal to run in convoys, in communication with each other. We'd keep within about 20' of the truck in front in order to draft them. Ran that way a lot back then, but NEVER in dicey road conditions. Then we'd spread out. I don't recall seeing "cluster trucks" in bad weather back then, except for the Atlantic states (and that's a whole different ball of macho right there).

Nowadays after getting back in the saddle it's a rare night on icy roads NOT to see clusters of trucks fighting each other for another 10' of "get there a split second sooner". Right now I drive a "mega" truck governed at 62. When roads are bad I'm not the slowest driver on the road, I feel confident in my own abilities, but I'm certainly not the fastest driver by a long shot. The idiocy I see today sometimes involves other mega drivers, but that's relatively rare. Usually it's the drivers with chicken lights all dressed up like gay bars talking smack on the CB, running in a cluster of trucks with other drivers that either aren't talking or don't have CB's.

The REAL cluster happens when a driver is going about 30-35 mph in the right lane. That's the speed where they are comfortable. Fine, if that happens and I'm running comfortable at 45 mph and see a "cluster truck" chasing up from behind at 55-60 mph I back off that 35 mph truck to give some space and watch the show. It's absolutely amazing to see the stunts that are pulled, dry roads or icy roads or not, as they fight to be first around the 35 mph truck.

A couple of months ago a lone driver came roaring past me going 60 mph or more on icy roads in Wisconsin. Chicken lights galore and talking smack at me for running 40 mph. Sure enough a few miles farther on he's parked it... down in the median. Kept it straight up, but it must have been a wallop of a jump down about 6-8' into that wide ditch. "I'm impressed with your ability to keep the hammer down in these conditions, driver".

"Aw shut up you slow poke!"

"Well, glad to see you're able to keep talkin'. Stay safe."

"*#)*~~!!!!"

I don't think he liked that "Stay safe" comment at the end.

 

I was a chicken hauler. And knew many hands out west.

One morning driving on ice a fried out of Dallas passed by me, I was running about 35 MPH, he was running about 70 MPH, he was not a chicken haouler.

He called out my handle, saying come on, your like me, you've got to get there on time.

He hauled out of Fort Worth Dallas, they had times loads that had to be there one time no matter the conditions.

I told him, "Go on, your right, I've got the get there, and I will, yet i will probably be late."

He says, "Come on, run with me and we will both get there on time."

I said, "Not me, I do not run 70 MPH on solid ice, and I feel sure up the road some where I will see you wrecked out, and when I do I will wave and go on by while feeling much safer with you setting in the median."

That made him mad at me and he would not talk to me any more.

Sure enough, about 10 to 15 miles up I-20 he was wrecked, looked as if he nearly tore his sleeper off his pretty new shiny truck, I eased on by, and I was about 6 hours late, yet they told me, "We are just glad you got that load here, and was not wrecked out somewhere on those icy roads."

You may not know the difference in a chicken hauler and a freight hauler. I know many chicken haulers back in those days, and they did not drive as you proclaim when the roads were icy, yet many of the freight haulers did. They hauled freight out and produce back.