plz help!

1st truck I owned didn't have Jakes, 2nd had a Jake Brake copy called a TEC (same type technology as Jacobs makes, but made by a different company) which was broken more than it worked, so I quit using it...and I never smoked a brake shoe. The best advice has already been given...go slow, use your 4-ways and take it easy.
Remember the advise an old truck driver gave me: you can go down a hill too slow a million times, but you only go down a hill too fast once, and the faster you go, the sooner you get to the accident scene.

 

When I worked at Stevens, we didn't have Jake brakes in the trucks.

 

Document everything! If you have qual comm, make sure you send a free form message whenever you have a defect and they wont fix it. When it finally hits the fan -there will be a record. Never, ever drive a vehicle that is unsafe, period...end of story. If they try to force you to drive it, or make threats, ask them if they have heard of the "Whistleblower act of the Surface Transportation Act of 1982". This is a law that protects you from reteliation from driving an unsafe truck! Then find a better company to drive for.

 

If you are smoking brakes with 7500lbs in the box,then i pity you..
Driver ,you better read the many threads on driving in the mountains.
There are many off them on TTR.

 

By the nature of the shop and DOT saying the truck is good to go, how are they blowing the whistle on an unsafe truck?? as another poster stated, an APU and jake brakes are not even REQUIRED equipment.

Telling people to blow the whistle at his particular instance is not very smart.

Right now, it is a NOOB that just doesn't know how to drive.

 

When I was a kid we had to drive our own school bus to school and it had no engine brakes or even an engine or brakes of any kind and it was downhill both ways. There was
literally no way to slow the bus down, and we did just fine.

 

That's when you take the fattest kid, and throw him under the bus.

After a few of them are gone, all the other kids stay away from Micky D's and Dairy Queens....and the remaining fat kids call Jenny Craig.

 

If they won't reseat you, won't fix the jakes, and you won't drive without them, your only recourse is to move on. Give them a two weeks notice, explain why, find a company more to your liking. Chances are they'll fix them when they realize they're going to lose a driver over them anyways.

 

All that works only if its a safety issue. Not having the skills necessary are the issues here. Descending a grade is a training issue , not an equipment issue

 

Many companies are only too happy to show someone the exit door.