Interstate 5, Ashland, OR truck hauling meat catches fire ...

Smoked his brakes coming off the Siskiyou Pass.... and my old towing company got the call. Lots of money to be made off of morons riding their brakes down the hill...

 

Moron?........little harsh............inexperienced is a better word

 

Harsh is life. Achmed didnt go thru the normal channels to get his license, and likely can't read the "jake" switch.

 

Find me something about a dozen feet back or so....I prefer mine a bit rare....

 

Well, okay then!

INEXPERIENCED moron.

I'll take mine a foot forward of medium rare, thank-you!

 

It isn't like there isn't warning going up and coming down that pass... but I guess you have to read and UNDERSTAND English in order to heed the warnings.

 

A lot of flat-land CDL mills don't teach their victims how to properly come down a grade... and a lot of idiots think doing warp 9 down a 7% grade with a 80,000 lb vehicle is .... KEWL.

Stevens Transport won't activate the jakes for their newbs for about six months, IIRC. Stupid. I've moved over to the shoulder a couple of times coming down Emigrant Pass because here comes Stevens with visibly smoking brakes...

 

I'll bet $100 that this guy never went to a school... I've been around a lot of these guys, and they usually take the written tests, drive a little in someone's truck, go do the road test at the DMV, and then start driving their brother's/uncle's/father's truck.

Unless they read the truck's owners manual, they wouldn't know what a jake was. Or downshifting to reduce speed.

 

That's insane, and borderline criminal, IMHO. It's one thing to train a driver to operate without jakes in case they fail....it's another to flat-out deny him or her a valuable tool. Absolutely assinine!