How often OTR drivers use cruise control?

On the open road in clear weather? Almost always.

Traffic or weather (rain, snow or wind)? Never. Adaptive cruise does have its application in moving traffic, though. To keep a safe following distance.

 

its a weird feeling to sit there and let the truck accelerate itself. feels like a robot. and really it doesnt ever apply light throttle. if it needs to gain speed, its full bore until it gets there

 

Pretty much 90% of the time on the open road and 50% in town on interstate. Depending on traffic.

 

Those are the old model systems. The newer ones have gotten much better about not giving you whiplash. We don't have enough of them at my terminal. Lol

Between that and the latest automatic transmissions I'm finally starting to not quite hate the new truck tech.

 

Hard to quantify how much I'm on cruise. I use it commonly, but in traffic, some mountain terrain, weather situations, I won't use cruise.
My cruise will hold me going down a grade as long as I'm not too heavy or going too fast for the grade. Normally, I'm pretty heavy. Around 78.5K gross is probably my most common weight. At that weight, cruise won't quite hold me, even at a safe speed for the grade. So, often, I end up off of cruise until I'm down the grade.
I had a 2019 Volvo with the adaptive cruise and I kinda liked it. I'm in a new 2022 Volvo now and the radar sensor thingy is one of those things on backorder for the whole world. So, my truck was actually delivered without it. So, no radar or adaptive cruise for me. It's taken a bit of getting used to. But, never had a 4 wheeler with any of that stuff, so it wasn't too difficult. Also don't have the 'collision warning and mitigation' and 'stop sign recognition'. Best I can figure, it'll be until the end of the year before manufacturing starts getting caught up on back order stuff like that. So, unknown how long before they might actually install the module and I'm not in a hurry about it. Kinda nice not having to put up with the occasional beeping and random braking (never automatically braked so hard that it caused problems as I've heard some of the Kenworth ones can do, in my Volvo, it's only ever been an annoyance, tap the accelerator and it'd stop the automatic braking).
Anyway, they say a truck gets better fuel milage if you use your cruise. I think it has to do with driver habits myself. I doubt cruise fuel milage is any significantly better than with the pedal for me. Others, without the years of experience I have nursing a tank of gas in a car, may have a differing result. IDK.

 

I use it all the time (90%) even downhill unless I have a super heavy load.

 

Whenever is safe to do so.

 

never use it. just my preference.

 

Good point. When the load is too heavy, or grade too steep, or both, for Descent Control, I just set the jake at max and use snub braking, right out of the CDL Manual.

 

My general rule is no more than 7 over on the big road, have yet to be bothered with that but I'm sure the right cop having a bad day would. Unless in rush hour traffic, then I roll with the flow at 75. Rush hour, cops just want to keep traffic moving. I'm always running eastbound into Jersey in the am and never see trucks pulled for speeding but on the way back out without much traffic that's a different story.