Central Refrigerated Truck Stop II

Wandering around at crswvc yesterday I noticed something that guarantees I won't be leasing another truck from central. All the new cascadias have the on guard system installed. I'm not giving a computer the authority to operate my brakes. Computers fail, and when they do I'd rather they not have the ability to take me with them.

 

Has anyone else ever had problems in the yard at Orient, OH? I dropped a load there and no extra spaces so I had to pull an empty and drop my loaded trailer in it's place, no big deal. But, that yard is way too crowded. I had trouble finding space to stage the trailers and the trailers are in way too tight next to each other which is also complicated by a Marten trailer perpendicular to our trailers and in front of them. It was tight getting a trailer out and getting one in took me an hour especially since the spots are slightly angled toward blind-side backing. As it is now I think there are some trailers that are actually impossible to get out.

 

Don't you love when you're ticket out of the terminal gets red tagged? This is why I never go to terminals.

 

Can you provide more details on the system? Is this insurance driven?

 

I talked to a driver who has the on-guard system on his truck. Says that if he gets closer than 150 ft to the vehicle in front of him, the brakes come on automatically. However if another car cuts in front but is going faster than him then the system does not activate. This is all second hand info, so it would be good to hear from someone else has this on their truck. Seems to me it would be nice when going blindly into a fog bank or smoke or dust cloud.
any first hand info out there?

 

Thx. Will be asking during training.

 

I dont know if your system is the same as what cretes was.. But cretes system would beep very annoying like if i got closer than 150 feet to a movng object in front of me. If someone cut me off, and didnt just fly off asap, it would not apply brakes but slam on the brakes. If i came to a 61.5mph truck, it would slow me down to keep a 150 foot distance. Lastly, sometimes when going under a bridge or underpass.. It would randomly slam the brakes on. Crete actually had a truck do this and the vehicle following them ran under the dot bumper. Last i heard, there was a lawsuit in the makings against crete. Hope this info helps!

 

i heard of a prime driver had the same thing. car ran right into his trailer.

it doesn't put on the brake lights either.

 

We have it on our truck... We have gotten use to it, and sort of like it... Yes it can be irritating with the noise (beeps if you are following to close or are gaining on a vehicle) and it does apply the breaks ... But we now KNOW these points and it will only apply the breaks if the cruise control is on. So if we are in heavier traffic, when its not advised to use the cruise anyway, we have it turned off. It will still beep, but doesn't apply the break.

However the one thing I really DON'T like about it... It will send reports via QC of any 'critical events'... And that includes following distances... We have had safety call us and ask us why we were getting so many warnings... Well our driving patterns hadn't changed, the On-Guard was out of adjustment... But the point is, they got a report...

 

Hey everyone, posted on the follow me thru central thread, wanted to post a couple questions on here as well.

I am going to Central the 20th.

First, what does DDT stand for? Couldnt find that out anywhere to save my life.

Also, when it comes to working with your DM for hometime, etc. Im not married, not really in any hurry to get home (other then transferring my license), no appointments, etc.

If I tell my DM I need hometime, but no specific date, just, something like, need hometime whenever it works out. Will that be more convienient for the DM, and make me look more flexible? Or is it something that can make me look easy to take advantage of, and get screwed over in the long run?