Empty trailers take longer to STOP

Newer drivers, this....newer drivers, that....

I cannot count the number of companies that more seasoned drivers gravitate toward that blast up on someone and hang ten feet off their rear end. There is no way to tell how much experience the driver has.

There was a discussion in another thread regarding steering wheel spinner knobs. At some point, the use of them was blamed, once again, on newer drivers. The one I almost broke my wrist on was installed by a driver who'd been out here for 23 years. I asked another driver who pulled up next to me with one on his wheel...how long had he been OTR? Ten years. Now, I know this is an extremely small sampling of the industry as a whole andit's possible that I may have gotten the only two drivers with steering wheel knobs and double-digit years of experience, but statistics show that is very unlikely.

It's not only newer drivers who are being aggressive on the roads like this. And, yes, I see drivers from my own team doing this dangerous behavior. I've seen it from every sector of the transportation industry. There is not one single segment that is innocent of stupidity.

But, how do the rest of us deal with it? B**** on an internet forum? Or holler at the offending driver for it? If it's somebody from the company I work with, depending on how severe repetitive and blatant it is, I will either holler at them on the radio, asking who their mentor was and was that taught as part of the program....or I will call it in to Safety. I have called it in twice...because those drivers were so aggressive and dangerous they needed higher intervention than being b****ed out on the radio.

Before anyone jumps down my throat about it and calls me a "rat," consider some of the responses here. And if I did not say something...condone the behavior with my silence....and this driver wound up behind your nervous teenager in his or her Driver's Ed class...and your teenager panic brakes, would you rather I had remained silent?

 

I can clear this up for you....A rat is someone who goes snivelin' to the cops...Not someone who calls a company about one of their drivers.

The whole "What if it was your wife or kid that was being tailgated?" scenario is a kind'a stupid and played out question that is designed to elicit an emotional response from the person being asked the question.

I call drivers on it in when they do things that are so stupid that I have no choice and I will call their companies about them...Needless to say, I have Werner, Swift and CR Englands saftey departments on speed dial...

The last one I called in was a Swift driver that had both feet on the dash and had his laptop propped up on his knees...Apparently playing a video game while driving across I-10 east of Tucson...It just happened to be a Swift driver but I have seen equally stupid things being done by many other drivers both company and O/O...Texting, eating, watching movies, surfing the internet, reading a book, looking at the atlas are just a few of the stupid things that I see "so called" truck drivers doing!

By the way...If you do ANY of those things while driving, You are a f***in' fool!

 

ReRun... you just couldn't stand being called out by a girl? So you gotta bring it up again?

Yes everybody, it was I who called him out on this bull before and I will again and again. Although this go around it's so nice to see how many others with REAL experience know the truth too.

Keep spewing your misinformation to your 'students' and they'll just learn real driving later. You should've just resurrected the original thread.

Oh and CelticWolf... I seem to recall a certain someone who hadn't even driven yet say "just don't be behind me empty and try to stop in the same distance I am loaded".... I'm glad to see you too understand REALITY and the BOOK are two different things. Maybe next time you'll reserve giving uneducated opinions as facts.

 

That's something I don't understand is why drivers tailgate. Everyday, all the time, you see it. It doesn't matter if they are in a Swift truck or some mom and pop company I've never heard of.

Drivers will haul ### up to you and then just hang out right on your bumper. I expect that from four wheelers but from trucks....drivers should know better. And it's not just newbies...that I agree with.

I seen our safety guy sent a photo to the terminal here in town. One of the company drivers had to stop fast in traffic and the car behind them smashed into the trailer. Then a truck behind the car stopped on top of the car. I believe it was in a work zone. There's a note on there about following distance etc...

Just comes down to common sense, IMO. But that seems to be a bit lacking in our society nowadays.

 

The problem as I see it is "TIME." The DOT have decided; we, as an industry need to be limited to driving 11 hours in a 14 hour time frame. No opportunity to take a nap during rush hour traffic or bad weather for a couple of hours without limiting yourself for the remainder of your work day. Couple the above with companies setting arbitrarily low speeds on the trucks and you have a recipe for frustration.

The drivers are doing the best job they can with 1 hand tied behind their backs. We have employers that demand a certain level of performance from us each and every day, customers that want their frieght on time, State and local agencies that look upon truck drivers as a source of revenue for their local coffers, and other motorists that do not want us in their towns, shopping centers, or roadways while they are there.

Motorists believe they "own the road" and get royally ticked off when a governed truck takes too long to pass another governed truck on the road. Factor in a steep hill and you get to add road rage to the equation. I am sure most of you have been flipped off by a passing motorist who believed you held them up on purpose and now they have decided to "teach you a lesson." These mental midgets will swerve in front of a truck and then slow down to force the driver to slow down further. Everything from boxing a truck in with other slow moving traffic to slamming on the brakes in the passing lane just begging for the trucker to hit them.

I am human like the rest of you and it takes all my restraint not to run over the top of these morons. I understand the problems out here and do the best job I can every day not to kill someone on the road.

That said; how about the rest of you realize the limitations of your equipment and stay out of the passing lane when other faster moving vehicles are approaching? That includes cars as well as trucks. If your truck is governed at 60 mph PLEASE stay out of the left lane.

 

Sure, provided that if you are 900 years old an incapable of driving over 45mph, you stay off the highway.

 

This is close to what I saw yesterday. Ohio turnpike has a lot of construction going on and the speed limit is 70, 50 in construction zones. I swear to you I was the ONLY PERSON doing 50 through the construction zones. I dont expect people in cars to be going slow because they dont care but I was being passed by every truck behind me. As I watched everybody slamming on their brakes when they reached me only to swing by me, I was thinking "Someone is going to cause an accident: narrow lanes and speeding"

I have a CDL and I am going to protect it. Not to mention I cannot afford a ticket, let alone a construction zone one.

No matter who it is, cars or trucks, people dont care about the rules. No matter what company they are with, it doesnt matter. When I see people in accidents, especially when circumstances are favorable for it, I just smile and wave as I drive by. If you are going to be that wreckless, I dont have any sympathy for you. And a lot of the time chain accidents are caused is because people following too closely and not looking at the road in front of them. They are busy watching their stupid GPS.

 

So apparently you are the only driver out there that obeys the laws? You never speed? You never violate the HOS? You have never moved to the 3rd lane to pass a group of slower moving vehicles in the right 2 lanes?

Or am I to believe that because you happened to be driving through a construction zone at that time you decided obeying the law was the moral thing to do???

How about next time you try and keep up with the flow of traffic rather than become an obstacle on the highway?



Face it, we ALL violate the rules of the road when it is convenient or expedient. Cops do it all the time as do other motorists in cars and trucks alike.

 

Wow--I always try to be nice on here and offer some sort of advice etc--but this is getting out of hand--bad driving is bad driving--and anyone can make all the excuses they want--DOT-DISPATCH--whatever--TAILGATING is BULL***T and everyone knows it--there is NO JUSTIFICATION--It is RANK AMATEUR CRAP--
Ok Im done.........................for now

 

I agree on the tailgating but then again, if you're limited to 63, you're stuck behind a 60mph truck, and you're not right up on him when the opportunity comes to pass him, you won't get past him at all.