Jake brake etiquette

That's right. If something happens i want to be able to stop that truck my way, not murphys way.

 

Youll stop. Don't worry about that. Yes siree.

I was discovered to be fearing mountain work. But my instructors hammered that out of me and one winter with a trainer snoring in the bunk fighting two feet of snow on a dedicated Baltimore GM Glass run towards kentucky several times a week took care of the mountain problems.

Once in a while I get that ice knife stab of terror when things go sideways but Ive always to this day managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Because I refuse, absolutely refuse to scream like a little girl and lose it all to panic. As long you can breathe, you can fight. If you don't think about what is going to happen at all and just act, you might yet live.

I live down here in the flat land out of necessity on the miss river valley and am absolutely bored. The Ozarks are nice but man I need that terror 300% grade and tilt to the world in order to feel ok again. It's just the way it's is.

 

Now its bothering me. I cant remember the name of the song. Any help?

 

You don't mess around with Jim

 

It amazes me how so many guys I see don't know the proper procedure to use them when cresting a hill and walking a truck down a long descending grade. Dropping a gear so your turning 2200 RPM isnt where you want to start out but hey it sounds cool

 

Well as soon as Harley's can't be heard from five miles away I'll start worrying about loud trucks. I have trucks driving by my house at 70mph and it's music to my ears when I'm going to sleep. I have a lot more trouble with the train a half mile away that needs every one within ten miles to know hes going by and the Sunday Harley crowd that drives by in packs of one hundred at 40mph revving their engines.

 

I did not clarify.

Coming off the crest you are at idle in a given gear for whatever the speed is. 10, 15 or what it is. You are seeking a gravity balance with nature on that mountain. Somewhere all forces come into balance where you might be able to lean against the engine's red line to hold it there. If not, you shift up.

Many new ones coming into trucking on automatics... I fear for them.

 

X2 on the Harley crowd. $1200 for a set of loud pipes that save lives yet they go out of there way to put a tail light on the back of the bike that cant be seen 50 feet away

 

You miss that 53' trailer trying to pass you going down, x1? You're welcome to my share, although I too like the added terror, and technique of driving my nice warm semi in rough conditions. Occasionally.

 

Friends, I had a thought this morning (I did, really). Some drivers think they should be able to do what they want because they're "truckers, and that's how I roll." I don't think like that. What I see is trucking as a service industry. We have customers who need materiel moved on roadways, and we move those goods for hire. Without them we don't have a vocation. A little cooperation out there? A good thing, and I try to be that kind of driver. Most of the time.