Attn: 4-Wheelers Please Read

I'm not saying what he did was right, I'm just saying it happens out there and after it happens so many times you start to get fed up. Just remember to leave room. There's a lot of truckers having a lot of bad days and sometimes they forget that these people that tailgate, cut us off, etc., are someone else's loved one. Seeing that you're in Florida and were traveling I-95, he was probably riding the middle lane so all the merging traffic could safely merge, but why were you? It's hard for a truck to create the space for traffic to merge, but a 4-wheeler should be getting left to pass. You had 10 miles to pass him and chose to do so at the last minute, and on the right. Not sure if you're a trucker or not, but remember we have to deal with the actions of other drivers for 10 or so hours a day, sometimes up to 14 hours if you're running hard, and even more if you're running illegal.

 

When I left Palm Beach County headed North there was a whole pack of cars, and with my cruise control set at 70, me & this truck were the only ones still together approaching the Hobe Sound exit (S. Fl folks seem to have only two highway speeds, 65 or 105). He was either sleepin' or playin' chicken.

I'm not a trucker yet, but I've been around them all my life, and my body keeps telling me I should be banging gears instead of nails... Hope to see ya out there some day.

 

I can certainly empathize with this driver's exasperation with our four-wheeling friends. I drive locally for a small company, and upon leaving our yard to head to the local highway, we must make a right turn at a four-way stop intersection from a two-lane road onto another two-lane road. Everyday, I make the right turn and deal with experienced drivers who sit and stare at me with a surprised look of incomprehension as I sit with my turn signal on and wait for them to move, even though I have right-of-way. What gets me the most, however, is that as soon as that car makes its left turn and opens the space for me to turn, the car behind them, who can clearly see my truck and its turn signal, immediately moves forward to fill the gap.

Since we're a small but established local company in a small city, I can't vent as I'd like to. Consequently, I just turn my head and look at the window into the distance and take a deep breath, while the four-wheelin' dingdong of a driver continues to stare at me in stunned uncertainty.

Unfortunately, these are the same people, who, when criticized for their gross ignorance of 'Wide Right Turn', will dutifully inform you that they've been driving for decades...

 

Ummmm, sorry, but this story doesn't fly with me. You have spot mirrors and a regular mirror on both sides of your truck to ensure you aren't going to run over anyone.
I was entering a gas station - not a truck stop - a few days ago and had to do so from the regular lane instead of the turn lane that was there for it - the entrance was too narrow and I would have taken out a lot of landscaping if I had tried to do so.
I had my turn signal on, but a car came racing up from behind me - I knew that person wasn't going to stop, much less slow down, so I just sat in my lane until they cleared it. That person turned into the same place I was going to turn into.
I SAW this person coming, anticipated the worst-scenario, and just stopped the truck. I would have run that car over if I had continued on - but as I said - that's what your mirrors are for. You are supposed to be the professional and you are assumed to drive in such a manner.
You can call car drivers idiots, and there are plenty of them out there for sure, but many people just don't realize what you are doing because they don't understand the complexity of driving an extremely large vehicle.

When I went into the store, this lady came up to me an apologized for, well she was being funny and said "running your truck off the road". I responded nicely to her, instead of having a friggin' spasm. I told her that it was no big deal, happens all the time, that I'm a professional driver an am paid to be safe out there which includes not killing the motoring public. She smiled and that was that.

It is unfortunate, but people simply don't understand some of what goes on with the task of driving a truck. I think you need to understand that your driving a rig that size and not even seeing the fact that a car ran into your truck and not knowing about it until a long time later is a serious problem - ON YOUR PART.

 

Yep sometimes you just gotta sit in the road for a few minutes to make your turn until someone gets the picture. For example was making a delivery to a Costco store in Detroit and had to make a right turn onto a really narrow mall entrance. Well sat in the right lane with a right turn lane on my right cause I knew there was no other way to make this turn. Sat there for a bit while the cars just kept coming up on my right turning into the mall, and all the people just kept coming up to the stop sign leaving the mall. Finally after about 5 minutes sitting there and a cop leaving the mall, finally someone actually sat way back from the stop sign leaving the mall and let me turn. An of course I always give a big wave and smile to the one who actually lets me turn. Like an older friend of mine told me before I was otr, wait or move over and let that trucker get to work!

 

Thank you. That lady just learned a valuable lesson about the space that trucks need to turn. And by behaving like a professional instead of a lunatic, you have shown her what a real truck driver is instead of the stereotype of the cretin. That lesson will remain with her.

 

I hold that right lane until i'm 2 car lengths from the turn, then ill take up both lanes, leaving the ### end of my trailer in the right hand lane to 'block' said idiots so that i can safely complete my turn.

 

What you said is my point: You CAN see what's going on beside you. If you can't, you have insufficient mirrors, don't have them angled correctly - or possibly you just plain don't need to be behind the steering wheel of a truck. You don't have to drive a truck for more than a day to learn that people don't understand or plain don't care what you are trying to do with that huge piece of equipment you are attempting to navigate into wherever.
I like to wave, too!

 

Thank you! But I did that which should be normal for truck drivers. I'm not surprised anymore by the reactions of people I am talking to about driving near trucks and what we see, what we need to be able to do, why we are doing certain things. We aren't sitting there in traffic with our turn signals on and brakes applied because we WANT to sit there. You do what you have to do to keep from getting into accidents and at the same time try to get your job done expediently as well.

 

Yea, generally it means this driver is going over the curb, because hes not paying attention, because he put a sticker on his trailer.