Am I being unreasonable?

Not to beat you up about it but....... seriously?

This is why dealing with drivers is so frustrating, and there really isn't truckers anymore!!!

Seriously not trying to be ugly but have you paid attention that not all trucks are aerodynamic and have good mirrors. I really hope you didn't pitch a fit about this to your company. If you parked because of that and lost 3 days of work well they lost three days of revenue also and they have a large amount of debt. Keep that in mind.

I could understand if it was a true case of a serious safety issue but come on.......

 

Yes OP, your being an absolute whiny baby and you are being very unreasonable. I don’t recommend you ever to drive any long nose hood. I personally don’t have any mirrors on my 379EX hood and I run local all day long. This is where experience comes in.

 

No offense, but you old timers that make these comments

are incredibly sad. Either accept that you have evolved yourself for the last 42 years and are not the same man or driver from 1976, or carry on and be that miserable old man that cant accept youngins doing your job with different tools of the trade.

That goes for all you old timers that want to say us young drivers are just steering wheel holders who constantly hit ####, just because i was born 13 years after you started trucking.
News flash! 28 years old, been driving heavy trucks since 18, commercially since 22, havent hit ####.

 

While it's great that you're safety conscious and obviously use those mirrors, they're not crucial to operation. I can see where not having them would screw with you when you're used to having them, but as has been said earlier, truckers got the job done without these for decades. To me, they're more of a blind-spot mirror than anything, which is to say I use them, but I don't rely on them.

I WILL say this. When it comes to lights, all the decked-out trucks with enough chicken lights to light up a parking lot by itself are a DOT officer's dream. Why? Because even though they're not factory and not required for safe operation of the truck, it's my understanding (per my trainer -- with 25 years experience at the time) that DOT can and will write you for even one being out, whether it creates a safety issue or not. I wonder if mirrors fall under that scrutiny as well. WILL DOT write a ticket for it? I can't say. But they probably can.

 

Okay, but I'll bet you a cup of coffee that if somebody took out your hood mirror and you still had two functioning door mirrors you wouldn't be on TTR asking whether or not to drive the truck.
Common sense doesn't have much to do with how long somebody has driven.
See? This time the old timer was right. Coffee please.
And one more thing...someday you'll be an old timer. Pay attention to how it's done and you'll be a successful oldtimer, too.

 

Drive the truck. Go to the shop. Get a new mirror. And quit being such a wuss, okay?
You're perfectly legal to drive.

 

It's a common misconception, but still a misconception. The law specifically states lights that are not required do not have to work. I'm guessing that was put int he law to clarify. I highlighted the relevant portions.

§393.9 Lamps operable, prohibition of obstructions of lamps and reflectors.
(a) All lamps required by this subpart shall be capable of being operated at all times. This paragraph shall not be construed to require that any auxiliary or additional lamp be capable of operating at all times.

 

Mr @Blackshack46, that’s a high compliment. Get the Man a coffee.

 

Mirror mirror on the hood who is the greatest trucker of them all?

 

no offense (sorry for any harshness) but you missed an important point with all the criticism.

These mirrors are not stopping thousands of trucks from running on the roads safely.

They are an convenience, an additional safety tool but ... it IS not a show stopper. If the OP wants to sit it out for three days over a trivial issue, go for it, but he asked if he was being whiny and people have said YES.

I've had mine taken off, GWB is one place where I've lost a few and so to my drivers. I had a frozen fuel system in ND once with the temps at -40 and I shut the hood, both mirrors shattered but did that stop me from getting the truck moving and making money? Hell no.

These mirrors didn't just came about, spot mirrors have been around for a long long time, long before us old timers were driving and used on trucks for as long as I've been on earth.

Tools of the trade are not mirrors, mirrors are safety items. Tools part of the skill set that drivers should have - one is to adapt to different trucks and conditions.

Tools of the trade are communication devices, computers and load boards - we all know how to use them there kid.