the dangers of trucking

I don't know why but this just tends to bug me a bit. I've seen 2 dozen or so threads so far where someones always puts in what I call the reality checks. How dangerous trucking is, you got watch every second, people die, death and 80,000 pound destruction raining down every where should you decide to drive. It seems to only change the directions of the threads. Anyway, not to make too light of the subject. Safety is a serious issue but we can't be so afraid to go around the next corner that we become paralyzed with it. As some folk seem to insinuate.

Let me just ask one question. For those of you who say one little mistake can get you maimed, dismembered, killed... I'm just wondering where you been? Have you never rode a motorcycle? Riding two wheels literally means that if we don't pay attention to our mirrors, and every other little thing, its almost a guarantee that we won't survive. And we do this for FUN! Your not going to be any deader if your in an 80k pound vehicle than if you just go splat on 1k pound 2 wheeler.

What's the point of this post?, I don't really know..

 

[QUOTE="semi" retired;4499250]Hi Danvitt, statistics show, in a crash, the truck driver is far more likely to survive than whoever they hit. Being involved in a major crash myself early on in my career, and seeing what happened to the 4 wheeler I hit, I always worried more about the damage I could do, rather than what would happen to me.[/QUOTE]

Can definitely understand that. I did go to trucking school like 12 years ago (my record was a bit colorful back then so I didn't make it all the way through) and one of the guys there told a story of a driver seeing a kid waving back at him. For whatever reason his truck slammed into the back of that vehicle. For the longest time the kids family didn't know who it was that was laying flowers down by the graveside each year. So the parents kind of stalked the graveyard on the anniversary and found it was the driver who killed him laying those flowers. Don't know if its true or it's just a story they use but it did the job and has stuck with me ever since.

I do take these things very seriously but the woe is me mantra, just needs to be some balance. I feel if I can keep my turns wide, give myself a reasonable cushion, and let the idiots go, i.e drop back, swallow my ego. Things will go well.