Night time down grades.

This. Mine kicks in at 70. Fastest I have ever gone was 72.

If Safety gets on you try setting it to 68 or so.

Also get in the habit of using your bright like another here mentioned. If it's an interstate with a lot of cars you can often see their lights starting down a hill.

 

The CB Mike hangs loose vertically on it's little bungee. If it's going up against the windshield glass by angle forward instead of hanging up and down over the coffee cup holder that's one clue.

A Pre-plan of your night's run should include mountain grades. If I know Im coming east from State College PA to Duncannon PA on US 322 there is a Seven Mountains Grade that must be taken care of. Allowing the truck to overspeed at night indicates a slight training flaw possibly.

Old school trucking eyes sweep from the left mirrior across the gauges to the right mirrior in a certain amount of time. Then always eyes up. The coffee cup without a lid with the coffee suddenly leaning out of the cup wanting to spill is another clue you are on a downhill.

Your RPM gauge and speedometer being trying to get into the high side with the needles is another clue. Read the instruments and actively participate in what the truck is telling you and correct it before it becomes a problem.

Prior trip plan should already have you expecting mountain passes already. You are suffering too high a speed already. Safety is potentially trying to find a way to break that habit before it kills you or someone else downgrade.

Situational awareness should already have you knowing you are running upgrade at 40 loaded or whatever. Once you come over the top hold her there or pull into brake check area. Break the hypnosis of never stopping.

Never be in a hurry through known mountains. I-80 features in PA a 10 mile downgrade I think 6 to 7% called milesburg. You have about 5 miles worth of barn sized signs warning you prior to coming over the top of that eastbound. If you are any good at all you will be awake, slowed and hold her steady on the jacobs as you come off the top never overspeeding.

Im not here to be dififcult. But do not think for a moment that you can break your governor's limit downhill by doing a cool 75 or whatever. I used to have a company governed at 55 a long time ago and the big 70 anywhere at any time in the downloaded computer off the tractor at the end of workday is a AUTOMATIC TERMINATION FOR CAUSE. You can bleat all the excuses you want but technically you are in a run away now that fast downhill.

If you seriously cannot identify small clues to your environment such as your own ears popping and hurting as you drop down a mountain then you are not really awake at night. That's gonna bite you at some point.

These statements are not meant to tear you down, they are meant to offer you a wealth of clues HEY BUD, YOU ARE GOING DOWNHILL.

You would think passing all those slow trucks going downhill will be another clue. They are probably doing 20 or 30 slower than you are. If you are really special, you would grumble and rage at the lack of being able to keep up among these drivers when it's YOU that is a problem to THEM.

Finally but not last, You might want to have a loud horn installed in that tractor to blare at you at 65 and over. Wake you right up going too fast.

Some people when they run at night, something goes out of them and they "See nothing" and process nothing. A percentage of them will die or get bad hurt in due time. You gotta shake it off, stop it and preplan before the night's run to come. So you know what mountains you are crossing tonight if any.

 

Lose the hoodie, take out the earbuds and turn off the radio. Pay attention to what's going on around you, listen to your truck, and just drive without any outside distractions.

 

This here.
Look at the speed on your gps.
Isn't the Prostar speedometer useless at night time?

 

Perhaps I miss spoke in assuming you work for Schneider. I'm just used to Schneider guys running PA with those kind of restrictions.

Apologies if I misspoke. Perhaps your rig is set up differently, in which case check your gauges, check your gauges, check your gauges.

 

I think the only part of my body that still works right is my hearing. I think I can hear a flea fart 50 feet away. This comes from wearing hearing protection going all the way back to my teens. Hearing loss is cumulative over time. When I drove I never run my radio very loud. If I could not hear my engine and the sound of the wheels on the road I was uncomfortable. Also there are differing opinions on this but I always felt one of the primary things about a good pre/post trip was listening to the truck. A truck driver that has hearing problems or has that sense dulled over time is begging for trouble.

 

Or the inability to clear the ears due to pressure changes on the mountain among other potential risks. Ive had mountain sickness a few times where the ER would patch it in a few hours and kick me loose with orders to get out and stay out of the western half of the country a few weeks.

The hearing portion is not a problem when the correct chart is generated and the correct prescription hearing aids are matched to built to order to that person. Most people don't understand what they have lost or missed out on without them.

I can function either way it does not materially change what I do with a 18 wheeler on the hill. I do everything the same old way, a routine. Anything that causes problems in physics has to be taken care of quickly before you have a runaway.

My father was a audiophile and liked his music. But one day woke up to get breakfast as usual and one ear was killing him. So the hospital did tests and realized due to a viral infection it totally and irrevocably destroyed his hearing in that ear while he slept. He still enjoys his music but it's clear that some of the joy and light has gone out of it.

The main thing with drivers in a big truck is that the mind, body and nervous system are all working cleanly without any drinking or drugging going on. If you are overtired at night it's worse than driving drunk. You will find that my early posts here contains that statement hundreds of times. Nothing beats a good proper rest before taking off.

I also recall many deliveries made in particular but I could not recall any details of those deliveries partly due to being over tired pushing 100 hours actively that week. Sometimes a whole week with no sleep. Hence the term sleeping next week. That seriously takes away from your future in so many ways. I have all sorts of sleep now when I get it. Almost catching up on a lifetime of being tired.

There are other ways you can hack your body so to speak to force it to wake up and stay alert in the early hours prior to dawn. This time between say 3 am to 6 am is the most dangerous time for humans because we generally are not built to run through the night like that. It's necessary to be sleeping. If you find enough wear and tear on the heart in those morning hours, it will show up in a variety of ways rather quickly ranging from MI through to heart failure when the predawn stress is greatest.

I carefully excluded sleep apnea from my thoughts here. That is a function of a medical world intent on harvesting money based on people who happen to have certain physical sizes that are used to diagnose such silly issues. HOWEVER. A true breathing problem that forces the mind to interrupt sleep is a genuine medical problem and you will never be rested properly until that is fixed. IF ever.

By the same token society can do quite a bit to help the truckers by leaving them the heck alone when they are obviously sleeping. Beating on the side of that sleeper hollaring NEEED A LUMPER!? Is going to get you killed potentially. And you wonder why I don't sleep in urban areas anymore.

 

One thing that helped me while driving at night was never going more then about 90 minutes to 2 hours without doing a walk around my truck. Just getting outside. Next best thing is opening a window in the winter. Those hours starting about 2AM can be horrible even if you got a good nap.

 

You have so much to learn.