how can a 4 wheeler best help an 18 wheeler?

It took me a while to get through this thread, and although I'm kind of new here and a few veterans to this site have already said it...

I'm disappointed in how a lot of you just took out all your frustrations for the general motoring population on one individual trying to get an honest opinion on how to share the road with us. Someone who aspires to drive a truck, but in the meantime, just wants to know what we're up against.

Telling him he has no business learning to drive a rig, blah, blah, blah.

Let me tell you, when I have someone "drafting" on me, I personally don't get my professional panties in a bunch over it. I think the majority of you just get pissed off because you either think that little gnat smooching your ICC bumper is saving some gas, or hurting your fuel mileage. Yeap, they're saving gas, and it's not costing you a dime.

If they want to risk zero visibility, a peeled tire in their windshield, running into you if you stop, etc... so mofuggin' what? Are they gonna push your big, bad 80,000 lbs. through a red light or a toll booth if you stop too fast? Hardly.

How many of you have run down the road, jawin' on the CB, without enough following distance doing the "soul train shuffle", being all cool, usually at a high rate of speed, and that's perfectly okay? I'll bet each and every one of you has ridden too close to a set of trailer doors in the day, not a question asked.

I'm going off here a little because of the hypocrisy involved.

Okay, the four wheelers do some stupid stuff. They're not educated enough in how to correctly share the road with each other, nonetheless a semi. This country has a set of terrible standards that allows the most blathering idiot to pilot a vehicle, and we have to exist in the middle of it.

That's why we call ourselves professionals. We are supposed to set a good example!

It doesn't give us a right to be arrogant, and smack those pesky little four wheelers out of the way.

One of the things that completely amused me was Cali Medicine Woman's 3 cameras in her truck. Yeap, the girl driving the four wheeler was a dumb*ss, no doubt watching that from the video. But I didn't see the *rolls eyes* professional driver anticipate her move, or try and move to the right to avert it. There seemed to be a few feet of divider between a merge lane. I had a hard time discerning whether or not she stood on her brakes or not. What I saw there was a "go ahead and hit me, I dare ya'" mentality as the horn was used. (If I'm wrong, I'll retract it....)

Two Smith System keys are. "Leave yourself and Out" and "Make Sure They See You.."

We all know the Smith System, correct? I was taught it a few years ago after many years of driving, and I still learned from it. I'd be willing to bet my next paycheck I would not have connected with her car. I would have saw it coming well before those cameras caught it. I would have noticed her texting, and tapped the horn to get her attention. I study people's body language all the time.

You are lucky she walked away and didn't have your name on her tombstone, regardless of her being "at fault" or not. How would you feel if they were extracting that young lady's mangled dead body out of her car, because it didn't conveniently deflect off the nose of your rig like it did? I saw quite a bit of traffic off to the right, I'm amazed that nobody else clobbered her. I hope to God that those cameras take ZERO attention away from your driving as you're going down the road. But alas, I bet that's sadly not the case - they have to at the very least obstruct your vision from where they are mounted.

I'm far from a perfect driver myself. I do strive to improve every day, and try and remain humble that by the grace of God, I don't ever send someone to the hospital, or the morgue. I would roll a $250,000 rig in the ditch in a heartbeat, to save one life, regardless of the idiot factor of the other driver. That's my promise to me.

Bogey, you are far from a lowly four wheeler. You're a human being, a life that matters to God, as well as the people that pile in the car with you. I drive one too, and I share the roads with my fellow professional drivers reading here during my downtime. When one stuffs me in my Mustang GT, I track him down, because I will shove my CDL 'A' right past his front teeth. The love of my life drives a four wheeler, my kids do as well, and my granddaughter is in the back seat of one of them.

Thank you for making the effort in trying to improve out there on the highways for all of us. Your admitted mistakes carry a lot more weight than some of the self professed "know it alls" here who want to insult others without taking a good look in the mirror first.

 

Stay clear out of my way. Don't linger next to a truck ( brainless ). Don't tailgate ( stupid ), Don't flash your high beams ( migraine ), Just keep going , don't look back and have a nice day.

 

I just wish that most of you didn't tailgate, especially at night and during bad weather. What makes you think that truck drivers can see you when you're driving 10 feet off of the trailer? What if we had to come to an emergency stop and you didn't react fast enough? What if one of the trailer tires had a blowout or a retread failure?

I give obvious warnings when someone is following too closely where the only tell tale sign that I know that you're there is from your car's shadow from the sun, or the distance of your headlights from the tail of the trailer. I will usually tap my breaks a few times, flash on and off the lights, or let off the accelerator and let the truck slow down. I came close to calling the police on someone who was following too closely. For some reason, they were too scared or stupid to speed up and pass, so they slowed down to get right back behind me. This happened on I65 in IN where there is a dual speed limit, 65mph for cmv's and 70mph for cars. Pretty soon the stupid things that I witness from cars will be recorded and uploaded to the internet.

 

I have a problem with the truck driver who drives too fast, doesn't use signals when changing lanes, talks on the CB or cellphone and isn't paying enough attention or sees me passing on the left then tries to cut me off by changing lanes. Looking down as you drive by is not flattering when your eyes are suppose to be on the road. Thank you to the truck driver who gave me a ride when I ran out of gas along Route 7 years ago.

 

Amen to all that.

And please dont throw lit cigarette butts in front of a gasoline tanker.

 

How many times has a truck driver signaled for a lane change just to have the signal ignored by others? That car has to pass, but so does the one behind it, and the one behind it, and the one behind it, and the one behind it, and the one behind it, and the one behind it, and the one behind it, so on and so forth. Turn signals mean nothing when everyone ignores them, or decides not to use them.

 

Just like we have problems with the 4-wheelers that do the same thing....well, minus the CB in most cases.

Its not just limited to people who drive cars and to people who drive trucks. Theres just as much idiocy on both parts.

Very good advice but cigarette butts shouldnt be tossed from the windows, period. Especially in the summer where theres been a drought.

I dont yank a tanker down the road but I still hate it when sparkin cigarette butts come flyin my way.

Exactly. Everybody's gotta get around that big, slow movin truck.

 

Quit pulling out in front of me then turning a quarter mile down the road!!!!!!!!!!!!! Number 2, quit passing me then driving slower than me or the exact same speed with me on your tail. If we are going the same speed slow down for a couple miles then reset your cruise and we will be fine.
Number 3, Quit passing me so you can turn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I could go on for awhile on this one, but I think everyone gets the point.

 

Make it easy. You would presume that the truckdrivers were professional and make allowance for driver that are not, but you would be wrong.

The best way to help modern day drivers is stay away from them as far as possible. And for multiple reasons.

1. Keep in mind it does take us longer to stop, and when you add heavy loads nad down hills, and maybe lack of experience even farther to stop.

2. Our tires have bad habits of coming apart, and a piece of that tire is capable of totaling your car and killing everyone in it.

3. Visibility out of a Truck is poor at best, except for while we are staring down thru your windows, which means your in the wrong spot anyway.

Add bad weather, poor roads (my back trailer is capable of jumping intp the lane your are in with little I can do about), So don't be there.

Stay Clear give them a wide berth, imagine that every truck is going to hit and drive apporately to prevent it.

Oh yeah, NO HIGH BEAMS, EVER.... Just because you see morons in trucks that do not know what they are doing does not mean you should copy them.

Flash low beams means come on over, flashing high beams means do not come over I'm going to pass, but even the new truckdrivers get that wrong.

 

Thank you for that one! Unfortunately I see this a lot. Why is it that they don't obvserve the traffic well before they come off the ramp? I will see cars right on the bumpers of trucks as they are coming off the ramp( as if there is some invisible chain connecting them). The truck has its signal on and is properly merging without cutting you off, but the cars are driving right along beside you. They are not slowing down or speeding up and you are forced to put on your brakes. Oh, sure, I could get into the other lane if traffic allows, but the problem is that these same cars don't allow me back into the right lane when I need to turn off onto my own exit right after this ramp. Many times I've missed my exit because of this.