Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

At some point in the near future. I have about had all the nagging, nannying, and being treated like a half retarded monkey I can stand...plus the driver annoyance systems on these trucks are way worse than the old On-Guard systems we use to have. It's all I can do to keep from putting the claws of my hammer thru the front radar unit when I have to deal with even moderate traffic. I have gotten to the point that after about 10 or 15 minutes of doing everything I can to keep it shut up...I just slow down to 50-55 mph and piss everyone off behind me. That way, when they pass me, they're going fast enough that it barely picks them up before they're out of range.

 

Anything under 450' it hits the Jake unless you keep your foot on the throttle. At 300' it beeps. The worst part is, if you see traffic slowing ahead of you, and you back off. It waits until the gap is opening before beeping like..."oh, by the way, there was traffic slowing down in front of you". I have it give me collision warnings out of the blue, and random 15-20' or higher overpasses. If you're allowing it to adaptively cruise when you're behind someone, then a vehicle merges in between you and the other car, it speeds up to the set point of your cruise...then slams on the brakes. Yesterday, I moved over to let a few cars on the interstate, after the last one passed me, I moved back over to the Creaffer lane. 325 feet ahead, that same car had it's hood pop open and fold part way back so the driver couldn't see. But he did hit the brakes and move to the shoulder. I saw it happening, didn't panic, and let him clear the lane without having to do anything...but the nanny system paniced, and attempted to slam in the brakes and throw up a collision warning... fortunately I slammed my foot on the throttle, so it over-rode the brake check...then I get some sort of 'hepatic blah blah' message on the Peoplenet screen. It wasn't even close to being a collision, but if it were up to the nanny system, it would have parked my ###, and pissed everyone off behind me for brake checking them.

They regularly send out their semi-annual reminder about phone use and distracted driving ...but their driver annoyance systems they install in the name of safety are 10x more distracting than any phone call or other electronic gadget we have in our cabs. And I don't even have the newest system with the big box blocking part of the windshield or the big bubble between the steps on the passenger side. I guarantee that if I were to put something as big as those collision avoidance boxes in the windshield, the DOT would write me up, but they can install anything they want like that, or bigger, label it as a safety system, and get away with it.

 

Then at 36 hours your home terminal is getting ready to reserve a rental car so you can go pick up a truck to swap to that is suppose to be fixed, but probably isn't.

 

I see 62 mph in Creaffer's future again before the end of the year if fuel prices stay high, or go even higher.