does anyone else get nervous when driving?

Like I always said Promiss me anything but Give me a Fat girl

 

before i retired was scared to stop and scared to keep going. just take it easy and dont over drive your experience. and yes it happen to everyone. b careful out there

 

The only time i get nervous is when i see a cop car in the mirror

 

True that. Tailgating while multitasking, speeding, and unpredictable lane changes; I always take extra care whenever they are near me.

 

Nope, I set the cruise control to the limit, lean back and stay in my right lane away from everyone. Even if an idiot decides to ride along side me for a while I slow down to let him go past. I leave my engine brake on during traffic or when going through certain cities where dumb 4 wheelers merge onto the interstate doing 25 mph right in front of you.

 

The only time I got nervous when I drove before was when I had to go to New York. I just disliked delivering in N.Y.

 

I always remember the advise of a wise old trucker the first time I made a foray in this business back in '77...

"A trucker that is always getting 'cut off' is a trucker that is always tailgating".

Getting stressed in heavy traffic most likely means you are defending the wrong space. This means you may be trying to defend the space in front of you to keep anyone from trying to "cut you off". This usually means you are in a gear running higher rpm's and using the jake set on max so you can quickly move up if there is open space in front of you and back off quickly with the jake if you need to slow down. Not only will this style of driving increase your stress, it will increase your chances of getting into a collision, and will certainly decrease your fuel efficiency.

After that talk back in '77 I started to back off of trying to "defend the space" in front of me and when it came to that little emotional surge of anger whenever someone "took my space" in front of me I started to consciously make a choice to "let it go".

I've never gone through the Smith System, but from what I understand about it I think it correlates well with how I drive in heavy traffic today. My philosophy was fundamentally changed and cemented about 15 years ago when I had a "driveway moment", listening to an interview on NPR that I just had to finish as I was parked in my driveway at home.

The NPR host was interviewing a scientist with a Phd in fluid dynamics, with his main area of study in the flow of traffic. He was most interested in computer modeling of heavy traffic patterns through major metropolitan freeways, and the only way they could get the computer model to effectively recreate the stop and go traffic patterns was to create "selfish molecules" that tried to prevent other molecules from "taking their space". Once they programmed this selfish trait into the molecules flowing through the traffic pattern, it almost perfectly emulated how traffic becomes stop and go instead of flowing steadily like water. The molecules would rush forward to prevent other molecules from getting in front of them.

Now the scientist was trying to figure out how to design new roadways that might help reduce the stop and go effect, but they couldn't come up with effective models as long as they had the selfish molecules. One day he was driving home in rush hour traffic and decided to become a "radical molecule", to not succumb to the need to prevent people from changing lanes to get in front of him. He made a game of it, trying to move through traffic in a manner in which he never had to use his brakes, going just fast enough to arrive at the last stopped traffic in front of him when it started to move forward and maintaining a speed that would allow him to go a constant speed as much as possible and no matter how much space opened in front of him.

Then he discovered an amazing phenomenon. By moving at a fairly constant speed he found that sometimes LONG distances would open up in front of him with stopped or almost stopped traffic on lanes to either side, and NOBODY would change into his lane.

Another amazing discovery was that fairly often traffic on either side of him would start emulating his constant speed, with all lanes starting to flow along at about the same speed. Once that happened the cars that were pushed up against stopped traffic in front would start to back off and flow along because they realized nobody was rushing up behind them to "take their space". Pretty soon the entire freeway would be moving at a constant speed, the stop and go pattern was disrupted, and then the speed would begin to pick up.

After listening to that program I started employing this technique of moving along at a constant speed, as constant as possible. I started making a game of it, giving myself +1 every time someone merged into my lane in front of my, to use the gift I created for them, and -5 every time I had to use my brakes. This was driving a car with a stick.

From my own experience I can say that what the scientist described is true. It is amazing how many times I'll be in heavy LA traffic, moving along at about 15-20 mph, and sometimes as much as half a mile of open lane will be in front of me with stopped traffic on either side and nobody moves into my lane. Many times the other lanes will start flowing along at my speed and the stop and go will largely cease.

Now my attitude in heavy traffic is almost zen like. I'm the radical molecule in the "fluid" and I almost look forward to getting into heavy traffic these days. Normally I will not use the jake and select a gear that I can "feather foot" at about 1100-1200 rpm's, with VERY gradual acceleration, never romping on either the accelerator or the brakes. I shift gears as needed to slow down in plenty of time to allow traffic to vacate space ahead of me.

The great advantage of driving this way in heavy traffic is fuel economy. I had a chance for a direct comparison, getting through afternoon traffic from Long Beach to Fontana, with the same load from the same customer. The first time my teammate drove with his normal high rpm, heavy jake, frequent hard braking, defending his space in front, tailgating, and cursing and swearing. He made that trip at 4.3 mpg. When I made the same trip I got 6.8 mpg in the same traffic conditions and arrived about 5 minutes slower than he did, and I was a happy driver the whole way.

Drive as though you are the shepherd of the road.

 

One thing is for sure driving a truck is not for everyone & that's what I meant in my earlier comment.

You have to make the decision that is right for you.

If I had been nervous behind the wheel of a truck I would have found some other type of work, for that would be more stress than a human body needs to be subject to. And such stress is very hard on a persons heart.

 

What he said /\ only like this:

Yeah you sh!+ nickels every trip for a while.

Then pennies and not quite as often.

Then an occasional IOU.

Then you got it and are totally driving by the seat of your pants (don't have to think - you just do it naturally).

How long that takes is a different time for everyone.

Then you poop a dollar every once in a while because feces doth occur and in trucking it doth occur on a right regular basis but by then it's only the serious sh!+ that really gives you pause for the cause.

No harm? No foul.

Motor on.

You got this kid, just give it time.

 

I only get nervous doing residential deliveries; too many low wires and tree branches