How to deal with sudden dead man's curves?

People lacking common sense dont belong in a 80,000 lb tractor-trailer.

 

Way too late for that. It's 1/2 the industry

 

I was at safe speed on an exit to entrance ramp for the next expressway. Halfway around the ramp and close to the merge lane the pavement got to be so bumpy with potholes and patching that, even at 10 MPH under the posted 4 wheeler speed, my front end started skating out. washing out towards the travel lane.

This happened in a dry pavement situation. Rain or snow and it would have been much worse!

Mikeeee

 

OK, old war story here that has absolutely nothing to do with trucking, but it does have to do with deep dips, blind corners and a stupid German tourist. (Deceased.)

One of the access roads into Death Valley comes down from US 95 at Beatty, NV. There is, (or at least used to be,) a place in that road where you went through a dip, then immediately into a blind curve. So our hero here, (dead German,) had been uh imbibing an adult beverage. Stopped right in the dip. Opened his door, got out and stood in the oncoming lane to take a leak. (I believe I did mention that this was both a blind corner, and a blind dip.) Anyway, car comes from the other direction and takes him out. Same time, another car coming from the same direction as our hero, enters the dip at a speed waaaaay to fast for conditions, and takes out the car.

We changed the unofficial name of that curve/dip from DEAD MAN to STUPID MAN over this incident.

OK, back to our thread now. . .

 

When i think of someone who doesnt even know to slow down when you cant see the road ahead of you, this is someone i couldnt trust to babysit my kids, take care of my car, gold fish, or #### near anything.

I am sorry if that sounds harsh, but even in truck driving school i knew to slow around curves. These are things you really cant teach someone.

 

I guess we just look at it differently. I see it as somebody who encountered a situation that caught him off guard and his reaction was to question what would he have done in a big truck so he came here and asked and hopefully learns that it's bad news to be off guard while driving these things

 

Besides bad news it could be a fatal. If there's 1 thing you learn driving off road in the mts. You never take your eyes off the road and never overload your as w/ your mind.

 

Slow and easy. Always.
You're not in you Chevy Cavalier, you're in a heavy, heavy truck.

 

Bet you gave the Parkies a heart attack taking a set over that road! You and I remember that curve a bit differently, but there is only one road in from Beatty. As you are headed down into the valley, the road splits off to the left at Hell's Gate to take you to Furnace Creek. Or you go straight to go to Stovepipe Wells.

I have found over the years, that I sort of "misplace" the locations of things. Things that I could SWEAR were on one side of the road, turn out to be on the other. So I'm sure not gonna argue with you on the direction of that curve. Haven't seen it since about 1997.